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Kenneth .Tflian heard them. — P. 75 


THE 

House on the Beach 

BY ^ 

JULIA MCNAIR WRIGHT 

'I 


*^Ask God for temperance.^' 

— King Henry VIII 




BOSTON AND CHICAGO 

iSTonffregational SaniJass^cfjooI anH Publisfjmg .Sodetg 



Copyright, 1893, 


By Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society 


PREFACE 


Christian Men and Women: 

What I have to say of this story is brief. It is true. 
There are terrible wrongs stalking abroad, wrongs to the 
home and to the heart ; wrongs that sap the foundations 
of the state and bring shame upon the Church of God. 
Right these wTongs if you can, or, at least, right them as 
far as you can. 


THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Discourse on Wrecks 7 

II. The Pretty Sister’s Adventure ... 22 

III. Sitting on the Sand by the Seashore . 38 

IV. Having Nothing 54 

V. Kiah Kibble, Boatbuilder 72 

VI. “I Am the Eldest, You Know” ... 88 

VII. Farewell! Farewell! 105 

VIII. When Winter Sweeps the Sea ... 122 

IX. At Christmastide 139 

X. Searching in the Night 155 

XI. In Praise of Temperance 172 

XII. Letty Has Her Hands Full .... 189 

XIII. Kiah Kibble, Champion 206 

XIV. Father and Daughter 223 

XV. Letty to the Rescue 240 

XVI. She Fought with Dragons 256 

XVII. By Sorrow’s Hearth 273 

XVIII. Too Late! Too Late! 289 

XIX. He Finds Life Impossible 306 

XX. The Last Cruise of the Goblin . . . 322 







the house on the beach. 


CHAPTER I. 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS. 


He hath lost the reins, 

Is outlawed by himself ; all kinds of ill 

Did with his liquor slide into himself, — Herbert. 



RAGMENTS of wrecks were scattered 


along the beach. Here, thrust deep into 
the sand, was a timber from the keel of some 
whaler that had once been famous in Arctic seas ; 
there, the centerboard of a catboat, once a 
fisher’s pride ; driven hard among the rocks was 
the hull of a coasting schooner, which the tides 
had washed as it lay, for five years ; yonder, 
battered beyond repair, was the longboat torn by 
some storm from a passing brig ; there, barnacle- 
fretted and weed-festooned, were the ribs of a 
yacht swept from distant moorings. Among all 
these wrecks, the children of the summer guests 
and of the fisher folk shouted and played and 


7 


8 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


climbed, now enacting Robinson Crusoe or Casa- 
bianca, now having a romp of hide and seek, 
laughter echoing, fresh voices calling, mirthful 
eyes and dimples and golden locks gleaming in 
the sun, amid this jetsam of loss and terror and 
tempest. 

All wrecks are saddening, but wrecks of homes 
and hearts and lives are sadder than the ruins 
wrought by sea and storm. 

The house on the crest of the beach was a 
wreck also. It was a small house, unpainted and 
bare. Its windows shone dazzlingly clear ; the 
stone doorstep was well swept ; there were pots of 
mignonette and sweet alyssum in the windows, 
and the bees left for them the blue lupine and 
hazy purple lavender or sea-thrift at the sand line ; 
around it swung yellow, white, and brown butter- 
flies above the long coarse grasses. These grasses 
rose as high as the window sills, and, ever waving 
and rippling in the breeze from land or sea, sent 
out a low monotonous sighing, such as murmured 
day and night in Letty’s heart. 

The house was a wreck — the wreck of a once 
honorable and flourishing home. The three who 
lived in it were wrecks also, poor debris of a 
household once happy and prosperous. Kemp’s 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS, 


9 


house,” people called it ; and Kemp himself was 
the saddest wreck of all — a wreck of what had 
been a scholar and a gentleman, a husband, father, 
friend. 

Yes ; in spite of the butterflies and the bees 
about the flowers, in spite of the shining glass 
panes and the clean doorstone, and the gulls and 
the sandpipers that came familiarly at a call, this 
place was a wreck — no longer a home, but merely 
a place of shelter for certain who were despairing. 

There are some wrecks to which the crews 
cling stanchly, and which stedfast hearts, firm to 
duty though bereft of hope, and stalwart arms 
knit to a final effort, still strive to bring into port, 
and this house was one of these. So much for 
wreckage. 

It was June, and mid-morning. The air was 
warm and full of health and comfort as it came 
with the sunshine into the open doors and case- 
ments ; the sea crimpled and rippled in little 
glittering curves, looking so harmless and so fair 
as it kissed with satisfied murmurs the tawny 
sands ! Letty sat by the window where the flow- 
ers bloomed. Her low chair was cushioned, and 
placed cn a square of carpet ; her workstand was 
draped with colored scrim like the curtains looped 


lO 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


back above the flowers. A little box neatly 
converted into a case, gay with olive-green felt 
and brass tacks, held her books. There was a 
soft crazy-work cushion at her feet. She had 
on her lap a light frame, across which was 
tightly drawn a breadth of linen, and her small 
supple fingers, working with the swift precision 
of machinery, were converting the linen into a 
very marvel of drawn work. Resting against 
the well-furnished worktable was another frame 
holding a square of plush, on which flamed 
golden-rod and cardinal flowers in a raised em- 
broidery that would have filled with envy the 
hearts of Matilda of Flanders and her women, 
as they wrought the Bayeux tapestry. Standing 
upon the table was yet another frame, upon which 
was tacked black satin, having in progress in gold 
thread a stork on one leg, contemplative, among 
rushes, and a dragon fly. 

Letty was wise : if it was. her lot to sit from 
morning until night busy at costly embroidery for 
the delight of the wealthy, she gave her mind and 
her eyes the rest of change, and turned by times 
from drawn work to gold thread, and from gold 
thread to silk, chenille, and arrasene. 

Letty worked in the sunshine, but she lived in 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS, II 

the shadow. There are shadows of the heart. 
In the air about her were mingled some of the 
sweetest sounds of nature : the breeze gently play- 
ing among the grasses ; the waves lapping sleepily 
the sand beach ; the low hum of bees continually 
busy and continually happy — for activity and 
happiness are nearly allied. Letty heard none of 
these sweet sounds. Not that she was deaf, but 
because they were drowned out by other sounds, 
— loud, rude, frantic, wretched, — that thundered 
not only upon her sensitive ears, but upon her 
yet more sensitive heart. 

There was a door opposite Letty’s chair, a door 
strong and well fastened, and it seemed that it 
needed both of these qualities if it were to resist 
the usage to which it was subjected. This door 
quivered and rattled on its hinges, and the strong 
fastenings of a bolt and two hooks danced and 
clicked in their places as heavy blows and kicks 
from within were delivered upon its unpainted 
sturdy oak panels. The door opened from, not 
into, the room where Letty sat, and she was in no- 
wise afraid of its giving way, but she kept lifting 
anxious gray eyes which would have been beautiful 
only for the supreme sorrow in them, and she cast 
troubled looks at the door from behind which. 


12 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


accompanying the blows, came shouts, groans, 
moans, wails, expostulations. 

“ Let me out, I say ! Is this the way to treat a 
gentleman and a scholar.^ O Shakespeare, well 
did you write that it is sharper than a serpent’s 
tooth to have a thankless child ! Open this door 
and beg my pardon, wicked and ungrateful girl, 
before you bring my gray hairs with sorrow to the 
grave ! I have nourished and brought up children 
and they have rebelled against me. Open this 
door ! Am I your father, or am I not } At this 
rate who would be a father } Cruel child, do you 
not know that justice will overtake you, and you 
will not live out half your days in the land which 
the Lord has given thee — or any other land ? 
Be sure your sin will find you out ! Little fiend, 
sitting there triumphing in my miseries and your 
own wickedness, hideous little monster, let me 
out!” 

At these words Letty began to cry. Not that 
they were new words ; she had often heard them, 
and she always cried. When one is crying one 
cannot do fine embroidery, so Letty laid down the 
drawn-thread work and rose. As she did so and 
came out of the shelter of her chair, it could be 
seen that Letty, with the face and head of a 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECJCS. 


13 


grown person, had only the height of a child of 
twelve, and that while she had no hump, her spine 
was not normal. As she stood one might ques- 
tion whether Letty were a child or a woman — a 
child with a very old face or a woman with a very 
small frame. Her hands and feet suited the size 
of her frame ; her hair was remarkably heavy, of 
a burnished brown, wound in thick braids about 
her head ; her face well featured, with a smooth, 
clear, dark skin, seemed that of a person of mid- 
dle age — a person who had known many sorrows. 
Letty was twenty-three. 

When she had risen from her chair she walked 
over to a wall roll that hung above a small table, 
and reaching upon her tiptoes she closed her eyes, 
and, after a little hesitant straying of her fingers 
among the leaves, she turned them over, and 
then looked to see what verse she had found. 
This was Letty’ s fashion of Sortes VirgiliancB. 
She was sure of not finding any unhelpful word 
among her leaves, for they all bore some of the 
sweetest texts and promises of the sacred Word. 

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, 
The Lord knoweth them that are his. 

Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : be not dismayed ; for I am thy 
God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee. 


H 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


This is a very good and comfortable book for 
them that mourn, surely. Letty wiped the linger- 
ing mist from her sad dark eyes and went back 
to her work. The uproar in the inner room had 
been in progress for over an hour, and Letty’s 
courage had almost given way ; but now the blows 
and protestations came less vigorously and there 
were lulls between. 

When one of the silences had lasted for some 
minutes Letty began to sing. Her voice was a 
woman’s, full, rich, sweet, and she sang : — 

" How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord." 

In and out of the black satin went the needle 
and the gold thread, bestowing upon the medi- 
tative stork wings and tail that left nothing to 
be desired ; and the sunshine flashed across the 
work, while the silence in the next room deep- 
ened and Letty’s song rose to the accompani- 
ments of breeze and bees and lapping summer 
waters. 

When the silence in the other room had lasted 
for over an hour, Letty rose and quietly drew the 
bolt and undid the hooks, but without opening 
the door. Then she placed a chair by the little 
table and set on the table a tray with bread, but- 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS, 1 5 

ter, cold meat, mustard, pickles, and cheese. Next 
she lit a little oil stove and prepared to make 
coffee. These cares being completed, she went 
back to her window and took up her drawn work. 

The sun and the little clock on the wall united 
in declaring it to be high noon, when there was 
a shuffle and stir in the closed room, and then the 
door opened and a robust man of middle age 
came out. His steps were uncertain and slow; 
he had the air of a bad child who had been shut 
up for some unrepented misdemeanor. He sat 
down and looked darkly at Letty and the boiling 
teakettle. Letty in silence rose and made the 
coffee. 

I don’t see why,” the man began in a com- 
plaining, monotonous voice, “ I don’t see why 
you use me so, Letty. Why do you lock the door 
of my room ? Why is my room so bare and 
destitute and with nothing nice in it ? Why is 
not Faith in the house .J* Faith is my handsome 
girl. Where is she Why don’t she stay near 
her unhappy father Why do you sit there and 
stitch, stitch, stitch, when you know I hate it ? 
And it is not good for you, Letty ; it keeps you 
from growing. Why am I come to this ? Why 
is Ralph Kemp, the scholar and gentleman. 


1 6 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

come down to this unseemly, poor little dwelling ? 
Where is my son Hugh ? Why did you send him 
away, Letty ? You had no right — had you? — 
to send a son away without consulting his father. 
Where is he ? Why is he not here to keep me 
company ? Hugh was so witty, Letty — not dull 
and grave like you. Why is it that my witty 
child and my handsome child are never near me 
— only you, Letty, only you ? ” 

Still keeping on with the drawn work, and 
holding over herself such iron self-control that 
no tears came and no quiver broke her voice, 
Letty, as her hand flew back and forth and her 
eyes were fastened on her work, replied : — 

‘‘ Father, the door was locked so that you could 
do no damage to any one or to yourself when you 
did not know what you were doing. Your room 
we have to keep so bare and empty, you know, 
so that there will be nothing for you to break or 
harm yourself with when you are not yourself. 
Faith has gone down to the rocks with her work. 
You remember Faith cannot stay in the house 
when you are so. It makes Faith too nervous. I 
keep at my work because I must, you see, to get 
us food. We are very poor, father. Never mind 
me, dear, it will not hurt me ; God sends me 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECNS. I 7 

enough strength each day for the day. Dear 
father, you are come to this ; your fortunes are 
fallen and you have lost your place in this world 
because you cannot keep from drinking, my poor 
dear. It is that terrible drink that has brought 
you down, and you know how often you have said 
you would never touch it again. Plugh has gone, 
father. Yes ; I sent him away. You know it 
was for the best. We could not keep a boy like 
Hugh where he had no friends^no chance to go to 
school, no one to help him along. He would have 
had only the rough ’longshoremen to go with 
here. He went to Uncle Wharton, you remem- 
ber, and the promise was that he should stay with 
him until he is of age, and until then he is not to 
see us or even to write to us. That seems rather 
hard, father, but it was Uncle Wharton’s way : 
he was so very angry at you, father. Our only 
hope for Hugh was to send him away. Don’t you 
remember that you used to take him to saloons 
and where the people gamed and drank We 
could not let Hugh grow up that way, father : he 
is a Kemp, you know. And, father, I stay with 
you always because I can take care of you, and 
I love you, my poor dear.” 

The unhappy Ralph Kemp looked up and 


1 8 the house on the beach 

winced a little at the pathos of these last 
words. 

All these facts, often reiterated, had yet con- 
stantly to be repeated because they constantly 
slipped from Ralph Kemp’s enfeebled brain, which 
kept but some dim and shifting shadow of them, 
at which by his questions he seemed to be clutch- 
ing, and they must needs be set forth so he could 
grasp them and hold them in clearness once more. 
If Letty had been silent, over and over again in 
endless and miserable iteration his complaining 
voice would have pressed its questions and made 
its assertions. Only by clear answers could Letty 
purchase silence. Thus, as many times before, 
she gave these answers by which she purchased 
peace, although they were her father’s arraign- 
ment at the bar of her conscience and of his — 
and no doubt were but feeble echoes of that 
weightier arraignment which should challenge 
his soul when naked from the body it stood 
before a more mighty tribunal than that of 
Rhadamanthus. 

Having heard what Letty had to say, her father 
bowed his head sighing. Letty finished making 
the coffee, and then taking his hand led him to 
the little table. He ate slowly, seeming lost in 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS, 


19 


thought, and with his head bent sidewise mused 
between each mouthful. Finally the meal was 
finished and by means of sleep, food, and hot 
coffee sobriety had returned. Like Samson of old, 
waked out of sleep, the father went out to shake 
himself. 

The cool, pure breeze, the fresh, clean face of 
nature called him to his better self and rebuked 
his degradation. With soberness had come those 
graspings at his former better self and estate 
which made Ralph Kemp’s state profoundly piti- 
able. He shut himself in his room. 

Letty meanwhile took her noonday lunch and set 
the little table in order for some one who failed 
to come, and her anxious gray eyes traversed 
the beach in vain for the tall figure of her 
beautiful sister Faith. She stood by the door 
looking out and giving a patient little sigh or two. 
It comforted her to look at that broad expanse of 
sea and remember that He holds that great ocean 
in the hollow of his hand. The strong One would 
not then faint or grow weary under those burdens 
which poor Letty hourly cast from her sinking 
heart upon his kind compassion — the father. 
Faith, the absent brother. How could she bear 
the burden of them all and solve the mysterious 


20 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


problems of their lives ? Through much need, 
through sore tribulations, this girl had learned to 
fly to her God with her daily cares. Where were 
these three whom she* loved so well and for whom 
she could do so little } Nearer and dearer to God 
than to herself — of that she was certain, and her 
heart grew lighter at the thought. So, back to 
her work again, for there was no time for Letty 
to fold her hands. Perhaps it was well that there 
was not — she was happier so. Her life was a 
routine : not only the work but such incidents as 
these to-day were not exceptional, but part of the 
regular order of events, returning just about so 
often, and likely to return so as long as Letty and 
her father lived. 

By-and-by the back room door opened and 
Ralph came out, clothed and in his right mind. 
Clean, shaven, well-brushed, his worn shoes 
blacked, his garments orderly, he looked even 
more of a wreck and ruin in this striving after 
respectability than when he let all the outer man 
fall to the level of the debased moral nature. 

This was his hour of repentance. He always 
repented, and perhaps that was even harder for 
Letty than were his vituperations. He came to 
her and knelt down by her and clasped the small 


A DISCOURSE ON WRECKS. 


21 


busy hands and stopped them in their work and 
kissed them. 

“ My Letty ! angel of a child ! Just like your 
mother, always trying to save me from myself! 
What an unworthy father I am I How little I 
deserve your devotion I Forgive me, my poor 
injured child ! You are dearer than Hugh or 
Faith ; they abandon me ; you never do. You 
ought to hate me I Poor little maid, checked and 
stunted and spoiled in your growth by my fault, 
my fault, my most grievous fault ! Never mind it, 
Letty, when I accuse you and complain of you ; 
it is not I that do it but the demon that rises in 
me. Don’t grow weary and forsake me, Letty! 
If you do, what hope shall I have } for heaven 
and men alike despise me, and only you, my 
child, cling to me. If Calais was written on poor 
Mary Tudor’s heart, Letty is written on mine. 
It is your name and your mother’s, my poor 
little girl!” 


CHAPTER IL 


THE PRETTY SISTER’s ADVENTURE. 

“ O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known 
by, let us call thee — devil." — Othello. 

N ot a quarter of a mile beyond the little 
house on the beach, a bold shoulder of rock 
was thrust from the land into the sea. Ages of 
storms had here denuded the framework of the 
hill, and heaped along the shore and out into the 
water were the huge fragments of what had been 
a cliff, and these were mingled with bowlders of 
very different rock, which had been long ago, in 
fhe ice age, swept down upon these coasts and 
used, like the catapults and battering-rams of old, 
to destroy this cliff in some Atlantean strife. 

The fallen and decaying monarchs of the forest 
come at last to be the shelters of wood mice, chip- 
munks, and squirrels, and other weak furry crea- 
tures ; the fallen splendors of summer leafage 
heaped upon the ground offer retreats for innu- 
merable beetles ; in the walls of old castles whose 
barons were once the terror of a kingdom, the 
22 


THE PRETTY SISTERS S ADVENT C/RE. 23 

small birds build their nests ; the face of the cliff 
is cut by the slow chisel of the rain and dew, and 
in the crevice the fern and columbine find foot- 
hold. So this cliff, which had fronted and defied 
the sea when the world was young, now broken 
and barnacle-fretted and weed-draped, had become 
a throne and a canopy of state to a young girl, 
dimpled and golden-haired and fair as May. 

One waterworn and hollowed rock offered a 
commodious seat, the fine warm sand before it 
was a luxurious footstool, the great rocks above 
the seat afforded a resting place and a shelter 
from both wind and sun ; there was even a little 
flat ledge which held a basket, a book, and some- 
thing done up in a white napkin. 

The girl on her stone chair of state and com- 
fortably resting back against the rock was busy 
making point lace. Her coarse blue flannel gown 
was perhaps shrunken from long use ; it failed to 
come down to two very pretty feet. She wore 
a round blue cotton hat with a stitched rim — a 
twenty-five-cent affair common at cheap stores at 
the seaside — and this, pushed well back on her 
head, which rested against the gray rock, sur- 
rounded her lovely Madonna face like an aureole. 
The girl’s waving golden hair was gathered in a 


24 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


loose knot lying low upon her neck, and her eyes, 
cast down upon the lace work, were shaded by 
long dark lashes. 

This was Faith, Letty’s sister, who had fled 
from the din and distraction of the little house on 
the beach. She had come here flushed, panting, 
excited, indignant, self-compassionate, stung with 
a bitter sense of degradation and anger. Years 
and repetitions had not taught her indifference 
or even patience with the troubles of her home. 
But now these distressful feelings had passed out 
of her face and the dimples had reasserted them- 
selves, and through her mind drifted song. For 
had she not the warm wide air, the sunshine lying 
upon the sea, the sweet sounds of nature all 
about her } And had she not youth and beauty, 
and that perfect health which makes mere living 
luxury } All the blood pulsing in that well- 
molded, vigorous young frame was full of vital 
energy, and the soundness and strength of the 
body soothed and dispelled the disturbances of 
the mind. Moreover, when one is well and strong 
and full of hope one soon rises superior to the 
troubles of to-day — and Faith was just twenty- 
one. Looking at her there — tall, supple, fine — 
she seemed much better fitted than poor little 


THE PRETTY SISTER'S ADVENTURE. 25 

Letty to cope with the demons that had invaded 
her home. But physical strength is not always 
yoked with moral or spiritual strength, and in 
these lines Letty had vastly the advantage. In 
patience, self-sacrifice, humility, compassion, sym- 
pathy, Letty, who had always to contend with 
physical discomfort and an hourly sense of lack 
of beauty and vigor, far surpassed her lovely 
sister; and patience, self-sacrifice, humility, com- 
passion, and sympathy are a mighty pentarchy in 
the soul. No doubt also there was a natural dif- 
ference between the two. Letty from infancy 
had been one of those who live in the joys of 
others, and when she had assisted in making 
every one about her comfortable and happy she 
sat down and was content in their content. 

So when the unhappy father had — as often 
happened — come home drunk, and Letty, to pre- 
vent evil consequences to others, had fastened 
him securely in his room, and next day the suc- 
cessions of fury, recrimination, penitence, and 
apology were to be gone through with, Letty 
remained at her self-appointed post, while Faith, 
as always, fled when the weather permitted. 

She meant to stay away until peace was fully 
restored. She could do no good by remaining at 


26 


THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH 


home; her indignation might break out against 
the disturber of the peace. Possibly she secretly 
felt that she was not treating her little sister 
quite fairly when she folded up that small lunch 
of bread and meat and, without stating her pur- 
pose, set -off, intending to be gone for the day. 
Letty would not' have opposed her plan strongly, 
but P'aith did not like to meet the sad look of 
Letty’s eyes or hear her patient sigh when she 
realized how intolerable to Faith the home mis- 
eries were becoming. It did not occur to her 
that Letty’s eyes would be very sad and her heart 
very heavy looking for Faith when she did not 
come. 

All the way to the rocks Faith had walked 
swiftly, with head thrown back, shoulders held 
well up, long, quick steps, her lips firm set and 
level glances of wrath flaming from her eyes. 
But the exercise and the pure air and the sun- 
shine had done her good and called her thoughts 
away from her troubles ; and as the lace slowly 
grew under her fingers, and she stole a look at 
her book now and again, life became not only 
endurable but enjoyable once more. She peeped 
into her book : — 


THE PRETTY SISTER'S ADVENTURE. 27 


“ Oh, that the mist which veileth my To-come 
Would so dissolve, and yield unto mine eyes 
A worthy path 1 I ’d count not wearisome 
Long toil, nor enterprise. 

Is there such path already made to fit 
The measure of my foot? It shall atone 
For much, if I at length may light on it 
And know it for my own." 

If only doings striving would accomplish any- 
thing ! ” she said. “ But how can any good ever 
come to me — to us.? We are bound hand and 
foot by our father’s sin. Dear little Letty! this 
other line seems always to fit her : — 

‘And hopes that even in the dark will grow 
(Like plants in dungeons reaching feelers out),’ 

But then Letty’s hopes grow because they are 
set on heaven ; here she only expects to endure. 
But I ’m different from Letty ; I want something 
for this world, and I expect that is right, too, for 
God made me in this world and has kept me here, 
and here is all the place I know anything about. 
Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘The grave cannot praise 
thee, death cannot celebrate thee : . . . the living, 
the living, he shall praise thee ’ .? I’m here, and I 
have to stay here, and whatever I do is to be 
done here. But what is the use of thinking of 
it ? I am so tied down and hemmed in, I feel like 


28 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


a captive in a dungeon, sure enough. Sometimes 
I get fairly wild for a little better chance — for 
something beyond earning bare bread and shoes 
and striving against waste and dissipation ! Poor 
Letty! she would be frightened if she knew just 
how I feel ! ” 

And here into Faith’s dreamings and musings 
came a loud, shrill cry, as if from a child in 
trouble. Out of her rock covert came Faith and 
surveyed the beach. A few rods from her sat a 
little lad on the sand, his hat pushed back on his 
head, his hands clasping his bare feet, rocking to 
and fro and shrieking in pain and despair. 

“Why, what’s wrong here, my little man ” 
cried Faith, running to him. 

At this apparition of a tall and beautiful damsel 
running to him, full of sympathy and with possi- 
bilities of help, the child lifted tear-filled blue 
eyes, wet, red face, and checking his shrieks into 
sobs gave answer : — 

“ Fishhooks ! ” 

Sure enough ; this lost infant was entangled in 
two or three fishing lines, much as Christian and 
Hopeful were bound in the nets of the Flatterer; 
moreover, one of these lines having trailed about 
him, he had trodden on a hook and it had entered 


THE PRETTY SISTERS S ADVENTURE. 29 

his foot, and while he danced about in the pain of 
this disaster he trod with the other foot on the 
hook of another line, and so here he sat wailing. 

“Why, why!” cried Faith, going down on her 
knees beside him ; “ I never knew a little boy to 
catch such big fish, and I . never knew a fish to 
make so much noise when caught ! Don’t you 
know fishes are silent } They only make a noise 
when they are dead, and sputtering in a pan. Did 
you ever hear a fish sputter in a pan } ” 

“ No-0-0-0,” mourned the little boy. 

“ See here, I ’m going to get you out of all 
these troubles and make you as right as a trivet 
in no time, only you must not frighten me by cry- 
ing. Try now if you cannot stop crying, and 
clear up your eyes and be cheerful and give me 
advice, and see that I do things about right. 
Come, come ! you are a boy, and will grow into 
a man ; you must be brave. Suppose by and by 
you become a soldier and are a great general like 
General Grant, and go into war, why, you may 
get wounded, and you will not want to cry then, 
surely I Keep quiet now. Did you ever learn for 
Sunday-school a text — ‘ Let all things be done 
decently and in order ’ } That is a good text to 
help us in such a case as this. Here are three or 


30 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


four fish lines and half a dozen hooks flying about, 
and you ’ll be caught again if you don’t look out. 
Here ’s one fast in your shirt alreafdy ! The first 
thing to do is to have these lines and other hooks 
disposed of nicely. While I wind them up, you 
think how the fish must feel to have these barbed 
things put into their poor mouths.” 

Thus discoursing, Faith wound up line after 
line, having much ado to disentangle them and 
fasten securely the stray hooks. Next, with the 
points of the small sharp scissors that hung at 
her waist she cut the hook out of the shirt, and 
finally her small boy sat on the beach, dismal, 
with a hook in each foot. 

Now Faith had time to perceive that this was 
not a fisherman’s child, nor one accustomed to 
going barefooted. His plump pink feet and round 
legs had never been tanned and hardened by ex- 
posure to sun and wind. The shirt-waist she had 
been snipping was of fine cambric and city make, 
his silk tie had been knotted by careful, tasteful 
fingers, and these little knee breeches were of the 
finest cloth. Sure enough, there on the beach lay 
long black stockings and a pair of buttoned boots. 
This was one of the summer boarders’ children, 
from the hotel half a mile away. 


THE PRETTY SISTER'S ADVENTURE. 3 I 

‘‘Are you pretty brave?” asked Faith, “or 
are you accustomed to howl every time you are 
hurt ? ” 

“I ’m brave — when I have to be,” said the boy. 

“That’s all right,” said Faith. “There is no 
need of being any braver than is necessary ; we 
don’t want to throw away courage any more than 
we want to throw away cake. I don’t think it is 
a good plan to put on courage enough to meet a 
lion every time we see a kitten.” 

The boy laughed. 

“ That ’s right,” said Faith ; “ I want to see you 
in a cheerful frame of mind, so you will have 
courage while I get these hooks out of your feet. 
You see, I can’t pull them out, because they have 
barbs ; I must cut them out ; and so you will be 
just like a big boy, for every big boy I ever saw 
has had a fishhook cut out of his flesh some time 
or another. It is the fate of boys. Now don’t 
wince or jerk. I ’ll do the best I can.” 

With this preface Faith took out a very sharp 
little knife which she sometimes used about her 
lace work, and addressed herself to the task of 
cutting out the hooks ; but she did not trust her 
boy in the matter of jerking. She took the un- 
fortunate pink feet, first one and then the other, 


32 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


prisoner between her knees, and held them vise- 
like until the deed was done. Her captive flung 
himself back and roared lustily for a minute or 
two, but was consoled by Faith’s cry of All right 
now ; here are your hooks ! ” So he sat up and 
watched Faith wash his feet in sea water, which 
smarted a little, but would be very good for them, 
she assured him ; and then she bound one foot up 
in his handkerchief and one in her own, and said 
that she would carry him to • her seat among the 
rocks. 

“ We will play I am a mermaid, and that you 
are a little fairy prince come to visit me.” 

“I can never walk home,” sighed the child. 

Oh, in a couple of hours I think you can put 
on your stockings and shoes, and get along very 
well. Perhaps some one will come to look for 
you, or I may see some one going along the beach 
who will carry you home.” 

Perhaps Ken will stop for me,” said the boy. 
“ What is your name. Miss Mermaid .? ” 

“ Faith. What is yours, little prince } ” 

Richard Parvin. If you are Faith, where are 
Hope and Charity.? I always hear about those 
three abiding — somewhere.” 

“They are up at my house,” said Faith, with a 


THE PRETTY SISTER*S ADVENTURE. 33 

remorseful twinge about Letty left alone ; they 
always abide there.” 

“Your house must be a pretty nice place, if 
you are always as funny as you are to-day,” said 
Richard with conviction. 

“ Now I will make the prince a seaweed bed,” 
said Faith, heaping up dry weed in a nook be- 
tween two rocks ; “ and now that you are well 
settled for a visit, how will some lunch strike 
you } ” and she laid out the napkin and placed upon 
it the bread and meat. These her guest, with the 
usual inconsequent haste of small boys, devoured 
at once. After that he did some thinking. 

“ Why don’t you stop working and play in the 
sand } ” said Faith’s company. “ I always play on 
the beach.” 

“ I have to work. I can’t afford to stop. I ’m 
poor folks.” 

“You don’t look poor-folksy.” 

“Thank you. Then I am not what I seem.” 

“ Richard ! Rich-ar-r-rd ! ” Loud shouts from 
some one. 

“There’s Ken ! ” said the small boy with some 
animosity, “and I ’ve a mind to just let him holler 
’n’ holler, an’ go clear home without me — an’ 
he’d catch it from mamma.” 


34 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


*‘But in that case how would you get home 
yourself?” 

“ Well, p’r’aps you ’d better let him know where 
I am.” 

“Here! here!” cried Faith, running out from 
her rock house to direct Richard’s truant play- 
mate. And so calling, she ran almost against 
a tall bronzed young man of about six feet in 
height and broad in proportioi^ wearing a very 
stylish suit of seal-brown corduroy. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Faith, stopping in vexation 
and confusion. 

Off came the young man’s hat. “ My little 
cousin Richard said he would meet me by these 
rocks. I was calling him.” 

“Here I am, Ken!” shouted the little lad, “in 
her rock house ! She is a mermaid, and I ’m a 
prince ; we ’re playing it, Ken ! ” 

“Delightful play! Let me join it. As I can’t 
presume to be a prince, let me be the humblest of 
the Tritons,” said the stranger, turning in behind 
the sheltering rocks to find Richard lying at ease 
with bandaged feet. 

Faith followed, angry to a degree. Her solitude 
was intruded upon, and chc had forced herself 
upon the acquaintance of one of these summer 


' THE PRETTY SI STEWS ADVENTURE. 35 

people ! She was by nature a proud girl, and 
something ambitious ; she had good blood in her 
veins, and suffered keenly from her fallen fortunes. 
The social disadvantage at which she found herself 
made her silent and resentful to golden youth 
of either sex. With the little lad she could be 
all playfulness, but now the mermaid taking her 
throne again looked rather a wrathful Juno. 

‘‘ Fishhooks ! The fishhooks in your feet ! ” 
cried Kenneth to Richard. 

“ Was it you gave that child those lines with all 
those hooks } ” demanded Faith with superfluous 
indignation. “I should think you would have 
known better ! ” 

He wanted them,” said Kenneth, crestfallen 
before the irate beauty. 

“ Suppose he did want them ! must people have 
whatever they want, whether it is well for them 
or not ? We want plenty of things in this world 
which we cannot have. We begin by crying 
for a lighted candle; would you give a baby a 
candle } ” 

‘‘ I think I would, if it cried very hard for it.” 

** Have you had everything you want, for in- 
stance ? ” said Faith, disgusted with this flippancy. 

‘'Pretty nearly,” said the golden youth with 


36 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

the cheerfulness of one to whom the world has 
been very good. 

“Then when the time comes that you want 
something and can’t have it, I ’m afraid you '11 
behave very badly about it.” 

“ Indeed, I hope not,” said Kenneth, to whom 
this sharpness seemed very piquant and amusing, 
as unusual to his experience. 

“ You will,” said Faith positively. “Adversity 
is the nurse of noble souls ; only your views about 
having every whim gratified are all wrong. No 
wonder you came near letting this child be lamed 
for life ! ” 

“ Say, Ken, I ’m hungry,” said Richard, “ and 
I ’ve eaten up all her dinner. She gave it to me, 
and I ate it before I thought.” 

“Oh, no!” cried Faith mendaciously. “That 
was only a little treat for stray boys who visit my 
cave.” 

Perhaps Kenneth believed that. He un- 
strapped a flat basket from his shoulders and 
proceeded to lay out a collation, saying, “ Here 
is also lunch for stray boys and girls. Let us 
make a treaty of peace and confirm it with bread 
and salt, and I ’ll promise to take Richard’s edu- 
cation in hand and refuse him everything that he 


THE PRETTY SISTERS S ADVENTURE. 37 


wants, especially my fish lines and hooks. I let 
him take them to carry while I went back to the 
swamp to get a few specimens of insects for an 
old friend of mine who is a collector. You can 
see them while I spread out my collation.” 

If he expected to be revenged for Faith’s tart- 
ness by seeing her jump in horror at “the bugs,” 
he was disappointed. She examined them coolly, 
remarking, “ I ’ve found much handsomer plenty 
of times.” She wanted to refuse to share the 
picnic, but somehow found herself eating it with 
the rest, and before it was over they were all 
telling riddles and making puns and quoting 
poetry in high good-fellowship. 

“ I wish you were at the hotel,” cried Kenneth. 
“ Where do you board } ” 


. \ 


CHAPTER III. 


SITTING ON THE SAND BY THE SEASHORE. 

“ Reputation, reputation, reputation ! O, I have lost my reputation 1 
I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is 
bestial." — Othello. 

T hat “Where do you board.?” coming at 
the end of their improvised and very jolly 
little picnic, recalled Faith to herself and her dis- ] 
asters. A shadow fell over her. 

“Nowhere,” she responded. “ I am not a sum- 
mer visitor ; I live here.” 

“So! why, I didn’t know anybody lived here 
regularly.” 

“I do ; so you see you were mistaken.” 

Kenneth was surprised at the statement and 
at the sudden change of manner. He had ob- 
served nothing unusual in this damsel’s dress; 
folks dressed as they chose at that sequestered 
beach. She was surely a lady ; the delicate skin, 
the fine hands, the tones of her voice, her lan- 
guage, all indicated that. He looked at her 
puzzled. 






“Where no you board?” 


See r 


37 



I 




BY THE SEASHORE. 


39 


Faith meanwhile picked up her lace and went 
to work with vigor. “ I ’ve been wasting my 
time,” she said ; and if that little boy stays out 
late, he may get cold in his feet.” 

“ Late ! ” said Kenneth. Why, it is not three 
yet.” 

It is quite time he was at home,” said Faith, 
resolved to compensate for overgraciousness in 
the picnic by sharpness now. 

“You ’ll have to carry me on your back, Ken,” 
said Richard the spoiled. “ Put my shoes and 
stockings in the lunch basket and strap it on my 
back, and then you carry me and we ’ll be three 
stories high, you and me and the basket.” 

Faith worked and vouchsafed no advice. 

Kenneth made his preparations for departure. 
Pursuing his homeward way, trudging through the 
heavy sand with this Old Man of the Sea perched 
on his shoulders, Kenneth felt no inclination 
for conversation ; but when Richard was finally 
handed over to his mother there was no need 
for questions. The youngster’s loquacity broke 
out : — 

“You ought to see her, mamma! She cut out 
the hooks just as good as Uncle Doctor! And 
she never minded my hollerin’ one mite. She 


40 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


made me laugh, too, she said such funny things. 
We played I was a prince and she was a mermaid 
and she gave me things to eat and a bed of sea- 
weed, and shells to play with, and told me lots — 
’bout things that live in the sea. She knows 
more ’n you do, mamma, ’bout some things. She ’s 
awful pretty, is n’t she, Ken } And she lives here 
and she says she ’s poor folks, but you ’ll like her 
— I’m sure you will. She ’s very religious, and 
she’s mentioned in the Bible.” 

‘‘What ! ” cried Ken and Mrs. Parvin. 

“She is! ” insisted Richard, “in the verse I had 
las’ Sunday : ‘ Now abideth these three : Faith, 
Hope, an’ Charity.’ She ’s Faith, — she said so, — 
an’ I asked her ’bout the other two, Hope an’ 
Charity, an’ she said they lived up at her house 
always!^ 

“Fortunate creature 1 ” cried Kenneth. 

“ You ’ll go see her, mamma, with me ” urged 
Richard. 

“Yes, indeed. She has put her handkerchief 
about your foot. When it comes from the wash 
we will take it back to her, and thank her for her 
goodness to my little boy.” 

Ken said nothing, but he meant to take back 
that shabby little kerchief himself. 


BY THE SEASHORE. 


41 


Accordingly when the laundress had brought 
back her work, Kenneth assured his aunt that 
she was very unlikely to find Richard’s mermaid 
on the beach ; the way was long, the sand soft and 
very hard to walk in ; he could take the hand- 
kerchief, and might perhaps see the young lady 
sometime. 

His way of casual meeting was to go to the 
rocky bower several times, but he always found it 
empty. Finally, one evening, he was fortunate, 
but not at the rock house. It was a little farther 
down the beach, beyond the tongue of rocks, and 
she sat on a low pile of driftwood. Her hands 
were clasped in her lap, and she looked far away, 
Evangeline-like. She was but young, we know, 
and the present held little but trouble, and she 
lived on hopes. She was looking for her ships to 
sail out of far distant waters and bring her the 
good things of life. Letty, from her window in 
the house on the beach, also looked into the dis- 
tance for joys that were to come, but Letty knew 
that her joys were not to be harvested in this 
world; she looked for them in a city that hath 
foundations, whose maker and builder is God. 

The sea was brimming like an overfull cup. 
Against highest tide mark the lazy waves slowly 


42 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


curled in semicircles of foam, and the light breeze 
carried their silver fringes up the tawny reach 
of sand. The setting sun gilded the little pools 
of tide water collected in hollows ; great fishing 
shallops were hurrying home, looking like birds 
stooping low over the water, each one lifting a . 
wide white wing. 

Faith had been to the village. Her father, ^ 
adept in bookkeeping, made up the books of some 
of the village merchants; the principal of the 
High School also sent him out Greek and Latin > 
exercises and the seniors’ essays to correct. ; 

It was so unsafe for father to go to the village 
with its open grogshops that Faith usually went 
for the papers and returned them when finished. ! 
Using such precautions, father might remain in 1 
his right mind for some weeks and earn his share j 
of the household expenses, while peace reigned in ; 

the little house on the beach. Faith was return- ! 

] 

ing now with a parcel of books and papers. They j 
were heavy, and she dropped them on the dry 
sand and sat on the driftwood to rest. More- 
over, her keen eyes detected far out on the water ; 
a tiny boat with a triangular sail, weather-stained, 
but with a new white patch on the peak. She 
had sewed that patch in herself. That was their 


£y THE SEASHORE. 


43 


little boat, The Goblin, and it boded no good that 
father appeared to have been looking after his 
lobster pots and to have been to the distant 
wharf. He was apt to be treated at the wharf. 
Faith sat down to wait for him, and there Ken- 
neth found her. He made haste when he saw 
from afar the erect, graceful figure in the blue 
flannel gown, and the mass of golden hair under 
the round aureole-like rim of the blue hat. 

I have been looking for you,” said Kenneth, 
pulling off his cap and bowing as to a princess. 
“ I wanted to give back your handkerchief which 
you tied on my little cousin’s foot. His mother 
thanks you so much for your kindness to him.” 

‘‘She is welcome,” said Faith, pocketing the 
kerchief with a little flush at its cheapness. 
Faith was sensitive. 

“ What a charming evening and scene ! ” said 
Kenneth, seating himself on the sand at a re- 
spectful distance from the driftwood. “ My little 
cousin is very anxious to be allowed to come' up 
here and renew his acquaintance with you. Miss 
— I — may I ask your name ” 

“I should think you would know it without 
question,” said Faith. “Don’t you read your 
Shakespeare and the notes ? ‘ Green and yellow 


44 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


Melancholy ’ sitting on the sand by the seashore. 
There is my name and description.” 

“Until now,” said Kenneth boldly, “I never 
met Melancholy, and I did not know she would be 
so pleasing.” 

“You could not expect to have had all your 
experiences so early in life,” said Faith, looking 
at him with an expression of severe middle age. 

“People who live in New York,” said Kenneth, 
“ are generally accused of living so rapidly as to 
use up all that there is in life very soon.” 

“In New York.J^” said Faith with sudden inter- 
est — then checked herself. But that word New 
York had chained her. Possibly this young man 
might, if he rambled on freely in conversation, 
mention names that she wished to hear — her 
Uncle Wharton and her brother Hugh. Oh, what 
joy would flame in Letty’s eyes if she could go 
back and say, “ I met on the beach a young man 
from New York, and he has seen our Hugh. He 
say§ our brother is well and strong and handsome 
and happy and educated and good and free — free 
from the family curse ! ” 

Faith was given to this sudden construction of 
castles out of a mere word. She forgot the pack- 
age of books and papers, forgot the incoming 


BY THE SEASHORE. 


45 


Goblin, forgot her dislike of golden youths ; she 
listened in silence while Kenneth talked his best. 
For his part, he was glad to talk without being 
rebuffed. 

And really his talk was so fresh and entertain- 
ing, it gave glimpses into so much happier life 
than she had known, that Faith was beguiled and 
forgot the time and the place ; and now the little 
boat had drawn in by the tongue of rocks and its 
occupant was pulling down the sail. Kenneth 
took out his glass. “ What ’s this } Little black 
craft with white line — The Goblin — eerie kind 
of name.” 

Faith was recalled to the present. What should 
she do or say to make this lad go away .? Why 
had she allowed him to stay and talk to her? 
She could not speak or move ; the nightmare of 
her home had seized her. 

“The good man had better look out for himself,” 
said Kenneth ; “ he has evidently been indulging 
in the inebriating cup. 

‘ So Noah when he anchored safe on 
The mountain’s top, his lofty haven, 

And all the passengers he bore 
Were on the new world set ashore, 

He made it next his chief design 
To plant and propagate the wine. 


46 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


Which since has overwhelmed and drowned 
Bar greater numbers on dry ground, 

Of wretched mankind one by one 
Than all the flood before had done.’ ” 

Butler — Satires,” said Faith scornfully. 

“ What ! you have read Butler ? ” 

“ Why should n’t I ? ” 

“ Only that it is one of the old standard books 
that young ladies don’t generally come across or 
take to.” 

“ That was the kind of books we had when we 
had any ; we have none now. That is my father 
down there.” 

Her cheeks burned crimson, her bosom rose in 
pride and pain. 

Kenneth was confounded ; oh, what had he 
said ! 

Faith sprang up. She forgot the parcel of 
books. Yes; that was her father with The Gob- 
lin, and evidently he had been drinking. A little 
liquor made him loquacious and self-asserting, full 
of vague memories of the past and rebellious 
against the present. She must hurry away ; she 
could not face him and hear him before a stranger 

“ I must go home,” she said excitedly. 

‘‘But where is your home } ” asked Kenneth. 


BY THE SEASHORE, 47 

“ Where I live,” said Faith blankly, with a level 
glance that rebuked his presumption. 

But Kenneth had meant no presumption. He 
was vexed that he had directed attention to this 
unhappy father, and now he only wanted to say 
something that should cover up that hasty speech 
and make it seem that it was of no importance 
and had passed out of his mind. 

Faith, however, turned and walked rapidly 
away. 

Women, old and young, had always liked the 
genial, manly, courteous Kenneth, and he could 
not understand why he was failing so dreadfully 
with Richard’s mermaid. He had better stay 
where he was until she was out of sight, and not 
seem to spy upon or pursue her. Strange this, 
so ladylike and beautiful, knowing Shakespeare 
and Butler and what not, and claiming this man 
who with uncertain steps was coming along the 
ledge of rock, for her father. Ralph Kemp had 
seen Faith and Kenneth sitting on the beach. 

Ralph was in just the condition when he talked 
most, lamenting over his past, and when he wished 
to impress upon all about him his original and 
proper position, and be judged by that and not 
by what he now was. Besides, here was a stranger 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


48 

talking to his beautiful Faith. Parents should 
know the people who talked to their daughters. 
His beautiful Faith had no mother; her father 
was her only protector ; so, uncertain and astray 
in mind as in steps, he turned toward the place 
where Kenneth was still sitting. 

I saw my daughter here. Has she gone .? ” he 
said, ruling himself with effort, and even the state 
he was in did not destroy the gentleman’s mien 
and pure pronunciation. 

“She has left a parcel here,” said Kenneth, 
reaching for the books and papers. 

Ralph Kemp sat down ; he felt dizzy and queer 
standing. He took the parcel and looked at it 
bitterly. “Young man,” he said severely, “ I am 
fifty-eight years old. I have been one of the 
most distinguished students in my class at Yale.” 
He undid the parcel. “To me Greek and Latin 
have been like a mother tongue. And here, in 
the prime of my life, I make a mere wretched 
pittance correcting these miserable schoolboy 
-exercises and themes.” 

“Yes,” said Kenneth, glancing at the papers 
held toward him ; “ but I don’t know as I could 
correct that Greek and Latin with any precision, 
and I ’m only two years out of college. But then 


BY THE SEASHORE. 


49 


I fear I did not distinguish myself. I just kept 
along about in the middle of my class.'^ 

“It is terrible,” said Ralph Kemp, “how young 
men neglect their opportunities. Young man, we 
shall be called to account for the use we make 
of our opportunities.” 

“A man of your abilities,” said Kenneth with 
courtesy and deep commiseration, “ ought to have 
a wider field for his talents than this.” 

“ I had one,” said Kemp sedately; “I had one, 
and I lost it.” 

“ That was unfortunate.” 

“Unfortunate! It was criminal. Young man, 
we shall be held to account for the manner in 
which we throw away our advantages. When I 
consider my criminality in that regard I wonder if 
this sea is wide enough to wash my soul white. 
It is not. No floods suffice to wash out moral 
wrongs. Take warning by me. I have fallen by 
wine. If you were not a diligent student, you 
may not remember your Plautus : I will quote to 
you in English : — 

There is great fault in wine : 

A mighty wrestler it trips the feet.” 

“ Now that you know what it does,” said Ken- 
neth, “ why not rise up and get the better of it ? 


50 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


Bowl the wine over and go on to what you used 
to he” i 

“That is impossible. The Portland vase was 
mended, but a wrecked character is another mat- 
ter. I could not get back the opportunities, the 
high positions I once held, because now I have 
lost the better part of myself — reputation. You 
remember that Cassio says : ‘ Reputation, reputa- 
tion, reputation ! I have lost the immortal part, 
sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial.’ No ! 

I have fallen like Lucifer the son of the morning. . 

I have been in Eden, the garden of God, and now 
I am cast out as ‘an abominable branch.’ ” 

“As you quote Scripture so well,” said Ken- 
neth simply, “perhaps you remember those other 
words, ‘ Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow ; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool.’ ‘Cease to do 
evil ; learn to do well’ ” 

“ Repentance is hid from mine eyes,” said 
Kemp. “The time is gone by. Do you know 
your Milton.? What does the great archangel | 
say.?— ‘To be weak is miserable.’ I was weak 
— morally weak. What does De Quincey say.? 
That ‘the sight of a family ruin wrought by 
crime is more appalling than Babylon in ruins ; 


BY THE SEASHORE. 


51 


and not a day passes over our heads but some 
families are swallowed up in ruin themselves, or 
their course is turned out of the sunny beams 
into a dark wilderness.’ So it is with me and 
mine. Once we were honored, happy, and pros- 
perous ; now we are cast like this wreck and 
pile of driftwood, a humiliated, despised family, 
sheltered in that little paintless cabin up there 
above the beach.” 

Kenneth had found out now where she lived ! 
and he felt like a criminal receiving from her bab- 
bling parent the knowledge she had withheld from 
him. Here, overthrown by wine, was a mind that 
had shone with no little brilliancy. If the years 
had gone on in garnering rather than in wasting, 
what might not this man have been } And how 
acute must be the pain of that ruin, dimly seen 
and chargeable to self, as this fallen man lived 
contrasting the present with the past and setting 
what he had become over against what he might 
have been ! 

Perhaps some of these thoughts had been tak- 
ing shape in Ralph Kemp’s mind. I might have 
served you and other young men like you, as a 
teacher,” he said. “ You might have hung on my 
instructions as the young men of Greece on the 


52 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


words of Socrates and Plato. But now I serve 
only as a warning. Young man, be warned! I 
have a son — or, I had a son. He was taken from 
me for fear I should demoralize him. I was not 
considered safe even as a warning. It is a hard fate 
when a father is not a fit custodian for his child. 
He is in New York now, I suppose ; Hugh Kemp, 
and he lives with his uncle, Tom Wharton, a man 
not half my equal in brains or acquirements — but 
also without my skill in self-destruction. 

“ If you see my son Hugh, tell him that a light- 
house is set up on the beach to keep ships away 
from itself, not to call them to it. I ’m a light- 
house ; I show him where not to come. Tell 
Tom Wharton I hate him.” Ralph Kemp was 
getting maudlin. 

“ Suppose I carry your books for you, and give 
you my arm for part of the way home ” sug- 
gested Kenneth. Not for anything would he go 
near the little house and further crush that proud 
young girl by his knowledge of her father’s state. 

But as they walked along slowly, Ralph stop- 
ping at times to talk sense and nonsense, to quote 
Greek and Latin and English classics, there came 
down the beach a figure with the long dress of a 
woman and the height of a child, bareheaded, 
sad-eyed. 


BY THE SEASHORE. 


53 


Father, I have come to walk home with you.” 

Had I better carry the books a little farther } ” 
asked Kenneth. 

No ; he can take them, and if he puts them 
down, I can carry them ; they are not too heavy,” 
said Letty. 

There was such pathos in her face and tone 
that Kenneth cried impulsively : — 

“ Poor child ! This is too hard for you ! ” 

“ I think not,” said Letty. “ God never sends 
more than we can bear.” . 

“Is it right to charge such things to God.?” 
asked Kenneth. “ I think we are too ready to 
accuse God for what is human sin.” 

“ I don’t accuse God,” said Letty. “ I only 
know that this has come into my life, and I did 
nothing to bring it in ; but I find I have a duty to 
do, and I try to do it, and when it grows too hard 
for me, then it will end.” 

“ How will it end .? ” asked Kenneth. 

“ I do not know. God knows. He has his way 
marked out plainly, and all that I have to do is to 
go on, straight on — 

* Never heed, my little children ! Christ is walking on before 
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more.’ 

It will all be ‘ as a dream when one awaketh,’ and 
‘as a watch in the night.’ ” 


CHAPTER IV. 


HAVING NOTHING. 


“ It has pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath : 
one imperfectness gives place to another to make me frankly despise 
myself." — Othello. 


ENNETH went back to his hotel feeling as 



if he had fallen into the middle of a fairy 
story or some strange wonderland. What singu- 
lar people were these — the beautiful girl, well- 
read, defiant, showing considerable tartness of 
temper and a mingling of pride, humiliation, and 
discontent ; a man in cheap and worn clothing, 
evidently habitually a drunkard, with the tones 
and air of a gentleman, quoting the classics of 
three languages and aptly applying the English 
Bible ; and finally, this dwarfed, plain sister of 
the beauty, this pathetic child-woman with the 
sweet voice and sorrowful eyes, a little saint set 
in one of the world’s hard places. 

All these must be worth the knowing, and to 
that grave courageous little maid he felt drawn 
in the strong bonds of Christian faith. Here 


64 


HAVING NOTHING. 


55 


was his Father’s child surely, finding her religion 
a daily stay in a thorny path. And to him the 
love of God had come as an added joy in an 
easy and joyous life, something into which he 
had grown with his daily growing, just as he had 
grown into man’s estate, and which when it found 
speech was expressed simply and frankly as any 
other thing that was noble, good, and true. 

He must tell his Aunt Parvin about this family; 
perhaps a woman’s heart and head were needed 
there to help and sympathize. 

Meantime, Letty took her charge home and, 
putting him into his room, said, Now, dear, take 
a wash and lie down until we get supper ready, 
and then after you have had a cup of strong tea 
you will be able to begin on these books. It will 
never do to let all this work lie over, you know.” 

Then she went into the little back kitchen 
where Faith had lit a fire and was preparing the 
supper, albeit with some unnecessary noise and 
vehemence. 

Do you know, P'aith,” said Letty, “ I found 
such a nice, handsome young gentleman helping 
our father home and carrying his parcel of books 
— a stranger.” 

‘‘ I wish he would attend to his own affairs,” 


56 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


cried Faith, '‘and let our father alone! He was 
quite able to take care of himself and carry his 
own books.” 

“ How did either of them come by the books, 
Faith } You had brought them — how did it hap- 
pen } Here, let me stir up that corn bread. You 
sit down. You are tired : you have been all the 
way to town and that parcel was heavy.” 

“ I suppose I left the books on the beach. I 
was tired and sat down to rest. Letty, we are 
nearly out of wood and there is a nice pile of 
driftwood down on the beach. It must be brought 
in after moonrise. If father can’t get it, I must. 
I declare, it makes me so furious to go sneaking 
out to get driftwood, just as if we were doing 
something wrong, that I think sometimes that I 
will just go right out in the light of noonday and 
bring in my load as old Molly Pegg does.” 

“ Father can get it,” said Letty quietly ; “ and 
it is not shame as of wrongdoing, but the reti- 
cence of the sensitive poor that makes us go for 
it after sunset, when no one will see. Do not fret 
over it. Faith dear ; we are not hurt by it, morally 
or physically. For my part, I am glad there is 
driftwood ; if there were none, what should we 
do for fires } How nice and hot the oven is ! 


HAVING NOTHING. 


57 


We have such a fine black bass here for supper. 
Kiah Kibble’s little boy brought it over. They 
had been bottom fishing.” 

Faith looked moodily out of the window. “I 
don’t see why father could n’t have taken the lob- 
sters to Kiah Kibble as usual, instead of going 
over to the wharf to sell them on that brig ! ” she 
burst forth. ‘‘He never gets as much for them 
there and he gets what he ought not to have.” 

“ I know,” said Letty patiently. “ Father is 
not always easy to manage. I reminded him not 
to go to the wharf.” 

“Always! He is never easy to manage. For 
all the good it did I might have let him go over 
to the village for the books himself.” 

“ Oh, no, dear I He would not have been back 
by now. We must not get discouraged ; we must 
do our part, you know.” 

“ I don’t see how you stand it, Letty I For me, 

I feel sometimes as if I could n’t and I would n’t ; 
and yet I have to. My could not and would not 
are like a little wild bird that beats itself to death 
against its cage.” 

Letty looked compassionately at her sister. 
Trouble is so much heavier when it is so rebel- 
liously borne. “ Dear, what has gone wrong with 


58 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


you ? What has happened?” she asked, still pre- 
paring her supper, while Faith, flushed and ex- 
cited, sat by the window. 

“ I might as well tell you all about it. It is 
a mere nothing, but it stirs me all up and makes 
me so angry ! ” So she related ^her adventure 
with little Richard Parvin, and the picnic under 
the rocks, and all that had happened that day on 
the beach. 

“I am sure,” said Letty, “ he looked as if he 
would be kind and respectful.” 

“ Kind and respectful ! ” cried Faith ; “ that is 
just it. He treated me exactly as he would the 
young ladies of his acquaintance at the hotel or 
in the city — and — I am not like those young 
ladies. I have patches on my shoes and my dress 
is faded and I make lace for a little money ; and 
I live in this cabin ; and my father comes back 
drunk from emptying his lobster pots ! Only for 
him, Letty, — if he had done right, — you and I 
would have been like the very best of the young 
ladies of this — person’s — acquaintance — of as 
good family and position and education and dress 
and means. We might have been down there at 
the hotel, happy and at ease like the rest, and not 
up in this cabin, glad to cook for our supper Kiah 


HAVING NOTHING. 


59 


Kibble’s bass. You, my poor Letty, would have 
been tall and straight and handsome. It is all 
his wrong and fault ! ” 

Our only help is in being patient and resting 
in God’s will and doing our best,” said Letty, 
setting the table. “ And, as you say. Faith, we 
are not like the rest and it is well to keep away 
from them. We must do and be just what our 
dear mother would have wished. Faith; and if I 
were you, I would have nothing more to do with 
that young man, though he does seem to be kind 
and polite. You cannot meet him on equal terms, 
and so I would not see him at all.” 

“ See him ! have anything to do with him ! ” 
cried Faith angrily ; “ I hate the sight of him ! 
My troubles and position make me so bitter, 
Letty, I hate all of them — all the comfortable, 
gay, well-to-do ones. I can’t bear them to come 
here. They spoil the beach for me. They make 
-the beautiful summer worse than winter. I don’t 
know how you stand it all so meekly as you do, 
Letty.” 

Faith dear,” said Letty, “ if I tried to carry 
my burden myself, it would crush me ; but I have 
always been so weak and helpless, and since 
mother died, with no one in this world to rest 


6o 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


on, I have learned to take all to God. Oh, it is 
such a comfort as each new trouble rises to fly 
right with it to God; to feel that there is One 
who knows all and can do all, who hears my every 
word and feels for all my sorrow. Faith, it is just 
this way, as it was when I was a little child and 
had mother : when I was out playing or when I 
was studying, whatever it was, I felt that mother’s 
care was over me ; and no matter what happened 
— if I hurt myself or lost anything or felt sick 
or tired, or any one said an unkind word, or a little 
playmate injured me, or I had happiness, found 
something pretty, was given a flower or a treat — 
it was all the same : I ran with it right to mother. 
I knew I should be welcome. She was never too 
busy or too tired to attend to me. All my feel- 
ings of joy or of sorrow were reflected in her face. 
Her arms were always held out to me ; she knew 
just what to say to me ; she could put all that was 
wrong right, and when I was tired I feel asleep in 
her lap. And, Faith, now mother is gone, and 
the cares are heavier cares; and what should I do 
if I could not fly with them all, every one, to God 
and believe what he says } ‘ As one whom his 

mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.’ ” 

“Letty, you dear little soul!” said Faith, bend- 


HAVING NOTHING. 


6l 

ing down and clasping her little sister in her 
arms, “ what an angel you are ! How ashamed 
you make me of my fretfulness when I see your 
patience ! Don’t be quite so good, Letty. I am 
often afraid I shall see the wings growing that 
shall carry you away where nothing shall offend. 
And we need you here, Letty. What poor stuff 
my religion seems beside yours, you little saint ! ” 

Letty smiled and patted Faith’s cheek. She 
was accustomed to these variations in her beauti- 
ful sister’s mood. 

“ Do sit down and rest a minute,” said Faith, 
“and let me make the tea. The trouble is, I grow 
restive and miserable over this having nothing. I 
count up the dont haves^ and the list is so long ! 
And you have just as little ; yes, you have less 
than I do, for I have health and strength, and 
you, instead of sitting and repining in the bleak 
region of having nothing, rise up into the higher 
region of possessing all things.” 

“ We both of us have much if we count it up 
honestly,” said Letty. “ I have strong eyes — 
that is such a comfort — and I have you, my dear 
sweet Faith. What should I do without you } 
And you know we have both had a good educa- 
tion, and that is worth much ; and you have not 


62 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


only health and strength but beauty, Faith ; and 
it is good to be beautiful.” 

“ Sometimes I think it is a misfortune,” said 
Faith. “ I can’t help feeling that I would fit in a 
much better place. I have the education and the 
taste and the appearance that belong to better 
things ; and then I look forward through the long, 
long years of poverty and toil and hardship and 
discontent, and I see myself losing the youth and 
strength and beauty and hope that I have now, 
and I follow with my eyes old Molly Pegg in her 
scoop bonnet and rusty cloak, toiling down the 
beach with her driftwood fagot on her back, and 
I say: ‘Faith Kemp! there goes the pattern of 
what you will be by and by I ’ ” 

“O Faith ! Faith ! ” cried Letty. “Do you not 
see that half your troubles are of your own mak- 
ing, are purely imaginary, and are caused by 
bearing to-day all the weight of the years to come } 
The loss of youth and health and strength and 
beauty you bear as a present trouble, when it lies 
so far away. And how do you know but that when 
the years bring all that loss, they will have brought 
one by one the compensations that shall make the 
loss unfelt — home, friends, competence, occupa- 
tion, useful position } How do you know, dear 


HAVING NOTHING. 


63 


Faith, what the good Lord has in store for you in 
this world? And whatever he has for us here, 
good or evil, as we may call it, we know and are 
sure that this world lasts for a very little while, 
and when we are done with it it will seem ‘ as a 
dream when one awaketh,’ and ‘ as a watch in the 
night,’ and no matter how little we have here, 

‘ eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him.’ We 
are sure of the crown of glory, the white robe, 
and the palm. Faith.” 

“You are sure of it,” said Faith, kneeling by 
her sister and holding her fast, “ because you 
daily grow in grace and have in your heart the 
earnest of the Spirit, and your afflictions are 
working out for you a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory. But for me, I think my 
guardian angel must be saying, as One who spoke 
to Paul on the Damascus road : ‘ It is hard for 
thee to kick against the pricks.’ But whatever 
you may say, Letty, I cannot help feeling that 
you do have more trials than you need or than 
are your proper share.” 

And as Faith said this she did not consider that 
hard as Letty’s lot was and many as her troubles. 


64 the house on the beach. 

they were made heavier very often by Faith’s own 
repinings and rebellions and murmurings. Letty 
had to be cheerful and courageous for both herself 
and Faith, and Faith added to the burdens which 
she deplored. Letty also did not think of this ; 
she was not given to accusing other people. 

For several days after, father kept at his work 
on the books and exercises and Letty wrought by 
the window and Faith in her rock boudoir made 
lace on the beach. Why should she refuse herself 
the health and comfort of the wide air, the spark- 
ling waves, the fleeting ships, the birds wheeling 
overhead.^ These things were life to her, and 
were her only joy. Winters, when she must work 
within doors, were so long, and summers were so 
short ! Why should she sit in the small room and 
be driven wild by the shirr of Letty’s gold thread 
through the satin, or the scratch, scratch, scratch 
of father’s pen and the sharp turning of the 
leaves of the ledgers } She meant to possess her 
rocky bower in defiance of intruders. If that 
young man from the hotel came, she would 
plainly ask him to keep away. But he did not 
come. 

Father’s work was finished and Faith must take 
it back. With days of abstinence sobriety had 


HAVING NOTHING. 


65 


fully returned, and father was enraged against 
himself, and for the time hated the demon 
whereby he fell, and wrote bitter things against 
himself. 'No one could accuse him more fiercely 
than he did himself. These days of depression 
and self-upbraiding were almost as painful to 
Letty as drunken days. Her father threatened 
suicide, declaring that the only kindness he could 
now do to his ruined house was to put himself 
out of a world where he played his part so 
poorly. Letty tried to divert him by keeping 
him busy and by making plans. 

“You need a new winter suit, father. Try now 
to save up money to buy one. And you will like 
to buy Faith a new dress, I am sure you will. A 
green camel’s hair, a very dark green, will become 
her so well ; and then you and she can go to 
church together. Suppose, father, that it should 
happen that you never drank another drop of 
strong drink. Suppose some sickening hate of 
it should come into you, and you were always 
sober. I know there are old friends who could 
find you a place in a Latin school, and we would 
go — somewhere — where the school is, and live 
in a dear little house, with books and pictures and 
a violin to play on ; and by and by Faith would 


66 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


marry a lawyer or a judge or the principal of the 
Latin school, and you and I would live on all our 
days together. You would like that, father.?” 

And father would listen, shaking and nodding 
his head. 

Like it.? Yes, very much. But what hope 
was there that the master-appetite should be mas- 
tered .? None ! none ! none ! 

Thus Letty and the father talked, one day 
while Faith was carrying the books to town, to 
come back with others. As she came back, mov- 
ing swiftly and gracefully where the sand was hard 
along the beach, Kenneth Julian, who was fishing 
in a creek running into a cranberry swamp, saw 
her, and straightway put up his rod. When a bee 
in flight sees a flower, to the flower it goes with- 
out afterthought or discussing why. Bees are 
made that way ; and where elate youth sees other 
youth and beauty passing by, straightway like is 
soon drawn to like, as bee to bloom. So Kenneth 
soon overtook Faith and from behind addressed 
her with deference : — 

“ Miss Kemp, will you allow me to carry that 
parcel for you.?” 

So he knew her name. Faith paused; she 
wanted something to find fault with. 


HAVING NOTHING. 67 

I am tiot Miss Kemp ; my sister is older 
than I.” 

Kenneth bowed humbly. 

“And I can carry the books. I like to carry 
parcels.” 

“The beach,” quoth Kenneth, “is wide; do you 
find it needful to walk on it alone } If I am 
obliged to go to the hotel the other way, it will 
be two miles farther.” 

Faith smiled a little. 

“ I have nothing to say about the beach ; it is 
common to all,” she retorted, and moved on, hold- 
ing her head high. 

Kenneth also moved on, walking so near the 
water that he wet his feet. 

“Your father tells me that you have in the 
city a brother, Hugh Kemp, with his uncle, Mr. 
Thomas Wharton. I could find him when I go 
back to New York. It might be very pleasant to 
him to meet some one who had seen his sisters.” 

Faith turned toward him a flushed and wistful 
face. 

“ Could you give me the address } ” suggested 
Kenneth. 

“ No ; but uncle has a warehouse in the gutta- 
percha and India-rubber business.” 


68 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘‘I can easily find it by the directory.” 

“ No, don’t ! Letty might not like it. Letty is 
so particular, and she promised — but I did not — 
I promised nothing.” 

Kenneth was silent. It might not be safe to 
question. 

Faith looked at him anxiously. 

“ I should like so much to hear from my 
brother ! We loved each other so dearly. We 
were always together ; and I have not seen him 
or heard of him for six years.” 

“That is a beastly shame of him,” declared 
Kenneth. 

“ No, no ! It is not his fault. But what I 
should like to know is if in this time he has for- 
gotten ; if he thinks of us ; if he cares for us still ; 
if he means to come back. The way of it was 
this : our mother died six years ago, when Hugh 
was thirteen. Uncle Tom Wharton, our mother’s 
brother, is rich. He is a bachelor. He was very 
angry with father — because of — his drinking, 
and he felt that that had made mother unhappy 
and had shortened her life. And when she died, 
he came and he had a great quarrel with father 
and offered to take us all three to live with him, 
only we must never have anything more to do 


HAVING NOTHING, 


69 


with father — unless he reformed. Letty was 
seventeen then, and she said she could not leave 
father ; she had promised mother to do her best 
for him. And I said I could not leave poor little 
Letty alone. So Uncle Wharton was angry, and 
he said father was going to ruin Hugh, and we 
could give him Hugh. And we agreed, and Uncle 
Wharton said there must be no communication at 
all until Hugh was twenty-one, and able to choose 
as a man for himself. He said by then Hugh’s 
tastes and habits would be fixed ; until then not 
a word.” 

“ I call it cruel, outrageous ! cried Kenneth. 

It seemed so to me. But perhaps it was bet- 
ter for Hugh. I think he will not forget, and in 
two years more we may see him again. Letty, 
for the sake of Hugh’s good, accepted Uncle 
Tom’s terms. I was angry and I did not say a 
word. We have never heard, not even if he is 
alive. I think Letty would be so glad to know 
that Hugh is strong and well and busy and happy 
and good. And Letty has so little comfort ! And 
I should like to know if Hugh’s heart is right and 
faithful to us ; if he has never forgotten all we 
used to be to each other. I want to know if he 
loves me still.” 


70 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


“ And you shall know it,” said Kenneth. *‘As 
soon as I go back to the city I will find him and 
will let you know.” 

“ Would you tell me the truth, the whole truth 
about him, good or bad, whether it would make 
me glad or sorry asked Faith. 

“ I would, honest ; there ’s my hand on it.” 

So they shook hands and walked on side by 
side, and now Kenneth was carrying the books. 

“Your Uncle Wharton must be a regular 
Turk,” said Kenneth. 

“He was very angry, and he hates father and 
has no patience with him. When our mother 
married our father he was one of the handsomest, 
most accomplished men in all Boston, with the 
finest of prospects. Their life opened so well ; 
and only think, in less than nineteen years all was 
ruined! You noticed my sister Letty She is 
like an angel. No one knows as I do how good 
Letty is. You see she did not grow right It 
was because father let her fall when he was play- 
ing with her when she was two years old. She 
was his pet. He tossed her up and failed to catch 
her, because he had been taking too much wine. 
He has never forgiven himself. I think it has 
helped to make him desperate — that and his loss 
of position and of his property and mother and 


HAVING NOTHING. 7 1 

Hugh. But Letty never thinks of complaining 
or condemning. She forgives him all.” 

“ She is a saint,” said Kenneth heartily. 

“We came here four years ago to hide from 
every one and try to keep father safer than in 
Boston, and we furnished that tiny house with a 
little money that was left. Letty does fine em- 
broidery, and I make lace for some stores in the 
city. People who knew our mother give us that 
work. You see we are poor folks, very poor, and 
worse — we are disgraced.” 

“ People can only be disgraced by their own 
acts,” said Kenneth. “ I talked with your father 
the other day and his learning made me ashamed 
of my own small acquisitions in my college 
course.” 

“ Father is really a splendid scholar,” said Faith 
with some pride. 

She did not realize how freely she had been 
talking to this stranger. Those words about her 
brother had opened her heart and made them 
friends. But suddenly, as she neared home, she 
bethought herself. 

“Give me the books,” she said. “I wonder 
that I have talked so much to you. Letty and I 
make it a rule never to get acquainted with people. 
We feel that it is much better that we should not.” 


CHAPTER V. 


KIAH KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER. 


Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.” 


— As You Like lU 


iAT place could be prettier than Kibble’s 



^ ' Inlet ? The clear water rising and falling 
with the tides, and seldom disturbed in its seclusion 
by the storms that tossed the sea, was bounded 
on the one hand by the low dark-green levels of 
the cranberry marshes set round with honeysuckle, 
smilax, and wild roses, iris, Saint John’s-wort, 
arrow-plant, and golden-rod in their season; on 
the other side rose the sand dunes covered with 
long, waving grasses and candleberry bushes. 

There on the sand beach, at the foot of the 
dune, the Kibbles, father and son, three genera- 
tions, had built fishing boats and had their boat- 
house for a hundred years — quiet, honest, cheer- 
ful, healthy, industrious, unambitious. God-fearing 
men. 

The boathouse had a little pier reaching into 
the inlet, and always beside the low brown build- 


72 


JiT/AI/ KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER. 73 

ing lay the big rounding hull of some boat, framed 
rather for steadiness and capacity than for speed. 
There were the great knees and timbers, the pale 
yellow heaps of shavings, the huge iron tar-kettle 
swinging over the low fire ; and there were kegs 
of paint and big saws and planes and mallets ; and 
there was Kiah Kibble himself, gray, weather- 
beaten, content, singing over his work. 

Kiah Kibble was the last of his family of the 
Kibble name. His boys, he said, had been all 
girls, and they had none of them married boat- 
builders. And when at last his arm should grow 
too feeble to handle mallet or chisel, then the old 
boatshop must be closed, or fall to some one not 
of the family of Kibble. 

Perhaps it was some secret feeling that the 
world could not go on as before when there should 
be no more Kibbles to build fishing boats that 
had impressed it upon Kiah’s mind that the world 
was soon coming to an end. That by no means 
made him unhappy. The close of this present 
dispensation he felt sure would usher in a far 
better period, when ‘'a king shall reign in right- 
eousness, and princes shall rule in judgement” 
— a golden age, when all evil shall be done 
with, and all men shall know the Lord and love 


74 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


well their neighbor, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away. 

As Kiah pounded with his mallet, or wielded 
hammer or axe, he looked now and then across the 
sunny landscape and the shining sea, and thought 
how fresh and fair all would be when the world 
was restored to its primal bliss, when angels should 
pass through the flowery ways and commune with 
men, and universal peace and brotherhood and 
holiness should bless a ransomed race. Every- 
where he searched nature and humanity and his- 
tory for signs of the approach of the aeon of his 
hope. 

In his little home above the boatshop, Kiah 
Kibble lived with a deaf old dame who kept his 
home, and her grandson, a lad who ran his errands 
and was to learn the boat-building trade, if ever 
he succeeded in learning reading, writing, and 
arithmetic at the public school. 

Kiah Kibble was the nearest neighbor of Ralph 
Kemp and his two daughters, and the only 
person with whom they had much acquaintance. 
The old man was rather well read and talked 
fluently. He was fond of singing quaint old 
songs, and he had a good violin which Ralph 
Kemp loved to play. Thus it happened that 


KIAH KIBBLEy BOATBUILDER. 75 

when Kemp grew restless in his little house, and, 
as often happened, had nothing to do, the girls 
took their work and went with him to the boat- 
house, where, seated on a pile of shavings in the 
shadow of the eaves, they worked while Kiah 
talked or father played. 

So it fell out one day, that while Kiah Kibble 
painted a nearly finished boat, Letty sat in the 
shade with her embroidery, and Faith with her 
lace making ; Kiah’s boy, rejoicing in vacation, 
was polishing with sandpaper the walnut about a 
porthole, and father, sitting on the worn, gnawed 
knee of a broken boat, played piece after piece on 
the violin, and the soft, sweet, human-like tones 
stole up the inlet and out upon the sea. 

Kenneth Julian heard them. He had volun- 
teered to go for cat-tails for his aunt, reckless of 
the fact that it was far too early in the season. 
Hearing the music, he strolled down toward the 
boathouse ; he had been there before. Great was 
his joy when he saw the party assembled. 

Deep was Letty’s secret annoyance at seeing 
him arrive. It was just as Faith had said : she 
and Letty had made up their minds that it was 
much better that they should know no one of 
the summer visitors, and Letty did not want a 


76 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


good rule broken in upon. But this was Kiah’s 
place, and Kiah welcomed Kenneth ; so did father. 
It would be churlish for Letty and Faith to go 
away, and father would complain greatly if they 
did ; for once he seemed to be enjoying himself. 

“Your violin called me,” said Kenneth. “I 
always envy any one who can make a violin speak 
as you do. Surely you are not going to stop 
playing just as I come up.” 

“ I will play again by and by,” said Kemp. 
“ Kiah is going to sing us a queer old fifteenth- 
century lyric which he knows, and the girls have 
promised then to give him his favorite song.” 

Faith bit her lip in vexation : she did not want 
to sing before this young man who was accus- 
tomed to well-trained voices. Faith undervalued 
her own sweet rich contralto, because it had not 
been tutored by learned masters. 

Kiah Kibble, however, had no scruples about 
his own singing ; he did not know when he flatted 
or wandered off his proper notes ; he trolled out 
his staves roundly as he had been used to 
singing to wind and wave : — 

"Saint Stephen was a clerk 
In King Herod’s hall, 

And served him in bread and cloth 
As doth a king befall. 


/CIAff KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER, 


77 


Stephen out of kitchen came 
With boar’s head in hand. 

He saw a star both fair and bright, 
Over Bethlehem stand. 

He cast down the boar’s head, 

And went into the hall : 

* I forsake thee, King Herod, 

And thy works all ! 

There ’s a Child bom in Bethlehem 
Is better than we all.’ ” 


And so on, for ten verses, sung with unfailing 
vigor and enthusiasm. 

When he had finished, Ralph Kemp began a dis- 
sertation on the troubadours and minnesingers of 
the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, 
and the part they had had in the moral and reli- 
gious education of the people. 

Kenneth listened with frank admiration.- This 
unfortunate man had gifts that would have made 
him an ornament to any college. Why was he 
not the honored occupant of some chair of liter- 
ature, instead of a poor, lost, degraded castaway, 
almost as much of a wreck as the fragment of 
timber upon which he was seated } Why not } 

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself ! 

“ Come, Miss Letty,” said Kiah when father had 
concluded his disquisition, “you promised me 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


78 


my favorite, you know. It adds a year to my life 
to hear you and your sister sing ‘ My Ain Coun- 
tree.’ It seems to lift me right out of myself 
and my work here, into the heavenly country.” 

Well, if they were to sing, it was much better 
to do it without urging. So the sisters began. 
Sweetly rose the young voices — Letty’s pure 
soprano and Faith’s full contralto — and it was 
a song in which they always lost and forgot them- 
selves in singing, for the beauty of it. Kiah’s 
brush moved more and more slowly, and the 
lad’s sandpaper ceased its grinding on the walnut 
wood as they sang : — 




i 


“ My sins hae been mony, an’ my sorrows hae been sair, 
But there they ‘II never vex me, nor be remembered mair ; 
His bluid has made me white, his han’ shall dry mine e’e, 
When he brings me hame at last to mine ain countree. 


Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest, 

I wad fain be ganging noo unto my Saviour’s breast. 

For he gathers in his bosom witless, worthless lambs like me. 

An’ carries them himsel’ to his ain countree.” 

“ There ’s nothing sweeter than that,” said 
Kiah when the sisters ceased to sing, “is there, 
Mr. Julian ^ That ’s what does me good and 
makes labor seem light and earth time short. 
I ’m old, and my hope for all that comfort lies up 


KIAH KIBBLEy BOATBUILDER. 79 

above. But you, Mr. Julian, and this little lad 

and these ladies are young, and you ’ll see all 

this world made over into the fashion of our ain 

countree. It will not be many years now. All 

the signs of the times point to a speedy close of 
✓ 

this dispensation and a restitution of all things.” 

‘‘But what signs said Kenneth, anxious to 
draw the old man out. “ Is it not true that since 
the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they 
were from the beginning ? ” 

“You are young, Mr. Julian, young — and the 
young do not observe closely,” said the boat- 
builder. “The old age of the world has come. 
Even in my time I have seen the changes. Na- 
ture has grown feeble ; the sun does n’t shine as 
bright as once it shone; the spring comes later 
and is less lovely ; the soil is no longer so rich ; 
the fruits fail, the crops are slender ; many kinds 
of animals and plants which I knew as a boy 
have perished. There used to grow cardinal flow- 
ers along that trench like a line of flame ; they 
are gone. The beach used to be strewed with 
shells ; there are almost none now. Once oysters 
and scallops were plenty here, and crabs too ; you 
never find them here now. The fishers have to 
go much farther out to sea for fish nowadays. 


8o 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


Men are not as big and strong, not as energetic 
or long-lived ; families used to be larger. All 
things now move toward the end — move fast ; 
the bottom of the grade is nearly reached. Wars 
and famines and plagues and great crimes have 
been sent to judge and warn the world. A little 
while, and all this shall pass away, and He that 
shall come will come, and will not tarry. Some- 
times I dream that that time has come, and all 
the earth is at rest and breaks forth into singing. 
No houses are locked at night ; no cry of violence 
is heard ; no man preys on the soul of his neigh- 
bor; I hear people saying one to another, ‘Come 
ye, let us go up to the house of the Lord our 
God,’ and up and down the peaceful ways I see 
tall, fair angels, just like Miss Faith here, only 
that they have white wings and wear white 
robes.” 

Faith cast down her eyes, blushing crimson. 

“ He does not know,” said Ralph Kemp to 
Kenneth, “that as long ago as before 260 a.d. 
Saint Cyprian saw just those signs of the end of 
the world, and proclaimed that the decrepitude 
of earth had come. These thoughts are original 
with Kibble, as far as he is concerned. He has 
not read the Fathers.” 


KIAH KIBBLEy BOATBU/LDEB, 


8l 


‘‘ Nor have I,’* said Kenneth. 

‘‘When I was of your age I read them all,” 
said Ralph Kemp. 

“Mr. Kibble must count it an added sign of 
the world’s decay that young men have so degen- 
erated,” suggested Kenneth. 

“ If young men nowadays have learned how 
to withstand temptation, or if their friends and 
teachers have grown so wise and so forbearing 
that they do not press temptation upon them,” 
said Kemp, “ then we will count it that the world 
has grown not worse but better, and that there 
is hope of happier things.” 

Once more Kemp took up the violin, and now 
Kenneth made bold to move a little nearer to 
Faith and to talk to her in the pauses of the 
music. 

Then when Ralph ceased playing Kenneth en- 
tertained them all; one while with college tales, 
in which Kemp delighted, and again with narra- 
tives of boating parties and picnics with those 
unused to such outings; and then with tales of 
Richard Parvin. 

All this was so fresh, bright, lively, that Faith, 
busy at her lace, felt as if she had slipped into 
a new world. Letty sighed. This acquaintance 
was not advisable. 


82 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


And somehow as they chatted, Kenneth learned 
from chance remarks the days when Faith went 
to town to take the parcels of embroidery and 
lace to express to Boston, and to bring back the 
plush, satin, gold thread, and other material that 
had come down for the work. Kenneth felt ris- 
ing within him a great passion for pedestrian 
exercises, and a decided preference for that path 
that, winding along by the beach, led to the 
town. 

At last the sun was low in the west, and the 
party at the boathouse broke up. Ralph Kemp 
took Letty’s embroidery frame and led her by the 
arm, helping her along, as always when he was 
himself he tenderly helped this daughter whose 
life his sin had overshadowed. This left Kenneth 
to walk with Faith. Did Ralph purposely move 
slowly so that those other two could idle along 
chatting by the sea } All this worried and wea- 
ried Letty. She was pale and tired when they 
reached the little house, and Kenneth proceeded 
down the beach at a swinging pace. 

“ Letty dear, that boathouse is too far for you 
to go to,” said Faith. “You look worn out. Sit 
right down here and rest, while I get supper. 
Father, don’t let her take a stitch or move.” 


A'/AJ/ KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER. 83 

Letty leaned back in her chair and her father 
sat near her. Faith went into the kitchen. 

“ Letty,” said Kemp, “is n’t your sister twenty- 
one } ” 

“Yes, father; this May.” 

“ And she is a beautiful girl, Letty. I think 
I never noticed it so much as I did this afternoon. 
A little like her mother and a little like me. 
Your mother was beautiful, Letty, but not so tall 
and stately as Faith. That is a very fine fellow, 
that Julian. What do you think of him, Letty.?” 

“ I have thought nothing about him, father,” 
said Letty, not quite truthfully ; “he is a stranger, 
and we have nothing to do with strangers ; it is 
not best.” 

“ And why is it not best, child .? If we have 
come off here and buried ourselves like crabs in 
a sand heap, why should not you or Faith take 
such little opportunities of society and so on 
as come in your way .? ” 

“There are many reasons why it is not best, 
father. We cannot meet people on equal terms. 
We are poor working girls.” 

“ Hush, child ! That is an accusation against 
me that kills me. Yes; I have dragged you 
down. But still, it is not impossible for Faith to 


84 the house on the beach. 

rise. Did you notice how that young man ad- 
mired her } He looked at her as if she were 
a queen or a goddess.” 

“ I think not, father ; only a poor girl in shabby 
clothes.” 

“ I tell you, Letty, I cannot bear such words. 
And I know how he looked at her with respect 
and admiration, as at the most perfect creature 
he had ever seen. It reminded me of the lost 
years, Letty, when I met your mother. And why 
should not Faith meet this young man, any young 
man, on equal terms ? You have both the man- 
ners you received from that true lady, your 
mother — she lived long enough to give you that ; 
and you have good blood in your veins, the blood 
of refined, intelligent, Christian people. You are 
well educated too. Your mother saw to that, and 
I have not neglected you. Bad father as I am, 
I have passed many hours in educating you. 
You have read much, both of you, and good 
reading too, and there are no educators like good 
books. And, Letty, why should not this be, 
that, though I am fallen, my children should get 
back to their natural place in the world ? It 
would be too cruel if a father’s fall should shut 
the gate of hope forever on his children. I hate 


KIAH KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER. 


85 


Tom Wharton, but I believe that he will make 
a good man of Hugh, and a good business man, 
and will set him up well in the world. Hugh was 
always like his Uncle Tom — all for business, 
but not for letters. Hugh will be a well-to-do, 
respected man in his own home some day. That 
leaves you and Faith to be looked out for. Now 
why should not such a girl as Faith marry some 
rich young man like this Julian } Then she 
would have her proper place in the world. She 
would have a home fit for her. She would never 
forget you, Letty, and when I am gone, and no 
longer here to disgrace and trouble my poor 
children, then you can be fortunate and happy.” 

Ralph Kemp was taking a tone very foreign to 
Letty’s wishes. He was building air castles on 
very poor foundations, and Letty felt that it was 
a wrong to Faith to have her future thus dis- 
cussed. And yet there was in what he said so 
much real fatherly love and anxiety for his chil- 
dren, so much self-effacement, that tears came 
into Letty’ s eyes. 

“ I wish you would not speak in this way, 
father,” she said. “You plan of what cannot 
possibly be, and I should hate to have you speak 
so before Faith. You know these summer people 


86 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


come and go and at once forget all the acquaint- 
ances they make here. They have friends of 
their own class in the cities ; and even if a young 
stranger did admire our Faith, he would have his 
family to please and consider, and though we 
know how good and lovely Faith is, to others 
she would be only one of a wrecked family — a 
poor girl making lace for her bread. Please, 
father, put these notions out of your mind, and 
don’t let Faith hear any of them.” 

But Ralph Kemp’s mind had fallen from its 
early clearness. He was dogged and insistent. 

must do more for Faith,” he said ; “ she must 
have some new clothes ; she must not make lace 
all the time ; she must read. I will get some 
more books. I will write to some publisher for 
Greek or Latin proofs to correct, and take my 
pay in books. Why was I allowed to carry off 
the books ? That was your fault, Letty ; you 
should not have let me take them!” 

But the kitchen door had been ajar and Faith 
had heard, and wrath and pain and mortification 
had risen beyond bounds. She came into the 
room and faced her father angrily. 

“ Her fault ! We should not have let you take 
them ! How could we help it ? You were 


KIAH KIBBLE, BOATBUILDER, 87 

threatening us with a knife. We loved our books, 
but we did not want to be killed for them ! ” 

“ Killed ! knife ! Threatened you, my daugh- 
ter ! ” cried Ralph with such a look of amaze- 
ment, despair, unutterable anguish on his face that 
Letty, crying — “ Faith ! how could you ! ” rushed 
to her father, clasped his neck and consoled 
him. There, there, father, you never meant it; 
you did not know what you were doing. Don’t 
feel it so, poor, poor, dear father ! ” 

Faith’s short-lived passion fled ; she bent and 
clasped her father’s neck. Never mind what I 
said. Don’t feel so, father.” 

But Ralph Kemp’s gray head bent lower and 
lower, and his big frame shook with the sobbings 
of a strong man’s agony. Had he indeed come 
to that, to threaten the lives of his daughters > 
This fierce remorse is the heaviest scourge that 
justice wields. 


CHAPTER VI. 


I AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOW. 


Learn temperance, friends, and hear without disdain 
The praise of water: thus the Coan sage 
Opined, and thus the learned of every school.” 


OR the hour, Ralph Kemp abhorred himself 



and repented in dust and ashes. He real- 
ized his iniquities as he had never before done, 
and he vowed in the most solemn manner that he 
would cast off his besetting sin, even if it cost 
him his life. His self-upb raidings and his pro- 
testations were terrible to hear. But sin indulged 
weakens both the physical and the spiritual 
nature; a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin is constantly lessened, and that true repent- 
ance toward God which grasps his grace for help 
becomes daily more foreign to the temper of the 
soul. Unstayed upon God, the steps that have 
habitually trodden the ways of evil are forever 
sliding. 

It is one of the unhappy consequences of the 
fall of a man of Ralph Kemp’s standing that the 


«/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOWT 89 

door of hope is so far closed that it is almost 
impossible for such an one to regain a normal 
position. The day laborer, the man of rough, 
common work, can at almost any time find work 
and wages. If he is sober enough to do his day’s 
task, his moral state does not detract from the 
value of his labor or lessen his opportunities of 
securing it. He goes to an accustomed toil, and 
activity diverts his thoughts, restores self-respect, 
and helps him in the conquest over temptation. 
But when the educated man, the professional man, 
has forfeited respect and confidence, lost friends 
and position, and been forced to abandon his nat- 
ural avocation, when he endeavors to reform he 
finds himself hedged in from good on every side. 
He cannot reenter the line of life he has aban- 
doned because for that the respect and confidence 
of the community were largely necessary. Bowed 
down by shame, he must sit with idle hands for 
the most part because there is so little that he 
can do, and what employment he finds is so un- 
congenial that it is not a pleasure but a pain ; not 
a distraction to the thoughts but a continuous re- 
minder of a fall. Thus instead of the spring of 
a new hope he undergoes the reaction of despair. 
How easy it then is to fall back into the familiar 


90 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


vice ! How almost impossible to do other than 
fall ! Restoration in such a case seems as much 
a miracle as the instance of him whose name was 
Legion and who dwelt among the tombs. 

Thus it was with Ralph Kemp ; when he had 
abstained from drink long enough to be free from 
its benumbing effects in body, mind, and soul, he 
felt, as never he had done before, the hopeless 
misery of his present condition. 

“Will he hold out.?” questioned Letty anxiously. 

“No!” said Faith, with a clearer knowledge 
of the world and of human nature. “ What is 
there to encourage him to hold out or even to 
make it possible .? ” 

Letty watched her father with trembling sym- 
pathy. All her hopes and thoughts centered on 
those three — father, brother, sister. 

To Faith life seemed to suggest wider horizons, 
and she recognized some interests beyond the 
little family circle. Somehow Kenneth had found 
out when she would be going to or from the town 
and he always managed to meet her on the road. 
He was so unobtrusive and deferential, so enter- 
taining and alive with the stir of the wide life of 
the city, that he brought to Faith a new atmos- 
phere, the enjoyment of which she could not deny 
herself. 


"/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOWT 9 1 

Hitherto, Faith had had no comrades but her 
immediate family, and since the death of her 
mother and the departure of Hugh she had had 
no companionship beyond Letty and her father. 
Even before they moved to the house on the 
beach her father’s sin seemed to have built a wall 
about herself and Letty and set them apart from 
other girls. The meagerness of their home life, 
the poverty of their clothing, the humiliation they 
constantly felt had debarred them from society and 
the little pleasures of childhood and early youth. 
And Faith had felt particularly alone because 
Letty’s deformity had so served to sever her 
from all earthly pleasures and set her hopes 
entirely in the spiritual world that Faith’s fanta- 
sies and imaginations, the poetry and books and 
daily amusements which she fancied would be 
so beautiful had no attractions for Letty, who 
lived only in duty done and longed only for peace. 

It was no wonder then, that, after some with- 
drawings and strife with her pride and suspicion. 
Faith allowed herself to drift into a frank friend- 
liness with Kenneth Julian. It was delightful to 
hear from him how things really went in the 
wide outer world ; it was so comfortable to have 
the books of the day brought and loaned to her 


92 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


in easy fashion ; to know what people were read- 
ing and what they were talking about, and to 
discuss these things with some one who was 
really interested in them. 

Kenneth always had some good excuse for his 
appearance — he had gone over to get a book, 
but to-morrow he would be out fishing all day ; 
would Faith not have the first reading of the 
book.? He could come up to the rocks for it 
the day after to-morrow. Or, his aunt had sent 
him over to the florist’s for flowers ; he had bought 
twice as many as she needed ; someway the flo- 
rist persuaded him into lavishness ; would not 
Faith take half to keep them from wilting ? he 
believed they needed to be put into water at once. 
That Richard was such a spoiled monkey ! he had 
made him promise to bring him a box of bonbons. 
By mere accident Kenneth had bought three. 
Richard would die of surfeit at that rate. Faith 
must take one box to divide with Letty ; and it 
was such a pretty box — the very thing to keep 
her lace work in. 

But Letty began to look with great uneasiness 
at Faith’s return home with flowers, books, or 
bonbons. 

‘‘What can I do.?” said Faith. “Why should 


«/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOWT 93 

I not take a little pleasure when it comes in my 
way? My life is so dull and hard, Letty.” 

Letty thought that if she had opportunity she 
would be very sharp with Master Kenneth. But 
one day Kenneth put his jolly face in at the open 
door of the little house on the beach. “ Is your 
sister away ? ” 

*‘Yes; she is away and I’m glad of it,” said 
Letty sharply. 

“So am I,” said Kenneth, seating himself on 
the doorstep. “ I know how much you think of 
your sister by the way I think of mine. Her 
name is Patty; she is a dear girl. Here is her 
picture ; will you look at it ? I want you to help 
me give her a pleasure.” 

“ She is a sweet-looking girl,” said Letty. 
“ What could I do for her ? ” 

“ I want you to make me a real splendid piece 
of embroidery to take to her when I go home. It 
shall be a screen, I think. You must choose the 
kind and the pattern. You have better taste 
than I. Please do not say you are too busy.” 

Letty could not say that, for in truth it was a 
time of very little work, and Letty had been wish- 
ing for more to do. As usual she had laid her 
need before God, and here was work offered. Was 


94 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


this the way of answer to her prayer ? To accept 
the work seemed the simple fashion of duty. So 
Letty said : “ I can begin it at once.” 

‘‘That is awfully good of you,” said Kenneth. 

And Letty thought it only fair to show him 
some patterns and materials, and give him a 
chance to exercise his own judgment. 

At this point Ralph Kemp came in. Letty has- 
tened to put all on a business footing. “ Father, 
I am going to make a screen for Mr. Julian. 
It is an order.” 

“ As my poor child is compelled by our mis- 
fortunes to do this work,” said Ralph, ‘‘ I suppose 
we must be thankful that she has it to do. But 
the days are not very far gone by when I would 
have thought it impossible that my daughters 
should know such necessity.” 

“ Ours is peculiarly the country of abrupt vicis- 
situdes of fortune,” said Kenneth, who felt that 
a reply was expected. 

Plena vita exemplorum esty' said Kemp sen- 
tentiously. “ Ruin is at all times hard to endure, 
but ruin which is progeny of crime is hardest of 
all. My children owe me nothing but reproaches.” 

“ Father ! ” said Letty, looking at him with 
entreating eyes. 


«/ AM THE ELDESTy YOU KNOW: 


95 


“ It is very warm to-day,” said Kenneth, trying 
to create a diversion ; “ could you let me have a 
glass of water, Mr. Kemp } ” 

“ With pleasure ; and I wish, young man, that 
no one had ever offered me a more harmful re- 
freshment, or that my hand had fallen withered 
when I held it out for a more dangerous luxury.” 

‘‘Father is very low-spirited just now,” ex- 
plained Letty as Ralph went for the water. 

“ ‘ Water the first of all things we do hold,’ 
says Pindar, if you remember,” remarked Kemp, 
returning with a glass of water ; “ and, my young 
friend, you cannot have forgotten the lines of 
Virgil, which have been so beautifully translated : 


So water trembling in a polished vase 
Reflects the beam that plays upon its face. 

The sportive light, uncertain where it falls, 

Now strikes the roof, now flashes on the walls. 


“ How well, my young friend, I have known the 
good, and how rashly I have followed the evil ! 
As a consequence, I find myself unfit to live ; too 
vile to look good men in the face.” 

“ Don’t, father ! ” cried poor Letty. “ You make 
yourself out to be so very much worse than you 


96 


THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH 


‘‘That would be impossible,” said her father. 
“There is no middle path, the Stoics say, between 
vice and virtue. Nothing is more honest than 
honesty; nothing more right than right.” 

Kenneth saw that her father’s remarks to him 
were making Letty miserable. Her father cer- 
tainly was rather depressing company ; besides, if 
Faith were not at home, she was at the rock house. 
Kenneth strolled off toward the rock house. 
Letty sighed. 

“ I shall be going home before a great while,” 
said Kenneth to Faith. “I have just persuaded 
your sister to embroider a screen for my sister 
Patty. I shall tell her all about you both and 
make her wild with envy that she does not know 
you. Patty, up in the mountains with Uncle Doc- 
tor, is not having half as good a time as I have at 
the beach. But Uncle Doctor Julian won’t come 
to the sea, and Aunt Parvin won’t go to the moun- 
tains, so Patty and I have to divide up our valu- 
able company between them. As soon as I get 
back to the city I shall look up your brother, and 
I want you to tell me what I am to say to him. 
How much am I to tell him about you 1 I should 
hate to say more or less than you would wish.” 

Of course it took all the rest of the morning 


«/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOWT 97 

to plan what was to be said to Hugh, and when 
Faith went home and told Letty how they had 
been talking about the dear absent brother and 
planning to get news from him, how could Letty 
be other than glad about that ? 

Master Richard Parvin did not find it difficult to 
persuade Kenneth to arrange for him a picnic of 
two up at the rock house, and to provide mar- 
velous dainties for that occasion. Kenneth and a 
big hamper repaired direct to the rocks, but little 
Richard, crimson with heat and joy and tugging 
a basket, appeared on the threshold of the brown 
house, voluble, insistent. 

“You are here. Miss Mermaid! It’s a picnic, 
you know, just for us. Ken has gone on with the 
basket. He would bring some poetry books, but I 
hope you won’t attend to them. Guess what ’s in 
this basket! You can’t! It’s just the goodest 
spread. Come on now, I ’ve been waiting pretty 
near forever for this picnic, and I ’ve said my 
prayers every night that there ’d be oyster patties 
and that it would n’t rain.” 

Then, for Richard was a born gentleman, “ Of 
course I want this little lady to come too,” with a 
shy look at Letty. 

“Letty!” cried Faith suddenly, “come, let us 


' THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


go. Let US have one real bright, pleasant day! 
We never have any good times. Come.” 

“ But father } I cannot leave him alone,” said 
Letty. 

“ Bring him along,” said Richard with heroism. 
“ Is he any good at digging clams Have you a 
shovel.? Ken said we’d dig some clams at the 
inlet, and roast ’em and eat ’em out of oyster 
shells. It is such fun I You ’ll come, won’t you.? 
Where is your father .? ” 

Letty considered that this excursion might tide 
over one day happily for father, and that if she 
refused the invitation for herself. Faith was equal 
to accepting it in her own behalf. She went to 
call her father, and Faith set off down toward the 
rock house with the jubilant Richard. 

That was a glorious day. Father shone at his 
very best. Faith never remembered him to have 
been more entirely the gentleman, less obtrusively 
the scholar. He charmed Richard, and waited 
upon Letty with a courtesy beautiful to behold. 
Kenneth dug the clams ; Richard washed them 
and collected driftwood for the fire. Faith, Ken- 
neth, and Richard prepared first the dinner and 
then the supper, and when the west was crimson 
and gold, and long shadows slanted before them as 


AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOW: 


99 


they went homeward over the sand, they said that 
it had been a gala day in their lives ; and would 
they ever see its like again ? 

Father had been inspired to be his best that 
day because of the little romance he had woven 
about Faith and Kenneth. The idea that Faith 
might be rescued by a happy marriage from the 
miseries of their condition shed the first light 
that for years had fallen upon the unhappy man’s 
pathway. The fatherhood that was still in him 
rose up to plan for the future of his child. One 
rescued,” he said to himself ; yes, two ; for 
Wharton will see Hugh safe ; and then, my poor 
little Letty, what will remain but for you, the 
guiltless, and me, the guilty, to perish together .? ” 

As Master Richard Parvin’s mamma was his 
dearest confidante, she was informed of all the 
glories of that clam picnic up the beach. Rich- 
ard sat up in bed, his arms clasped about the fat 
knees drawn up under his nightgown, his sun- 
burned countenance shining from a recent bath. 

“You just should have been there, mamma; 
you missed the most fun ! Her father is a really 
gentleman, all except his clothes, and her little 
sister — I can’t tell if she’s old or if she 's young, 
but she is so nice ! and the mermaid beats them 


lOO 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


all ! Ken thinks she does too. Ken likes her 
better than these ladies at the hotel ! ” 

‘‘What ! ” said Mrs. Parvin. 

“ Oh, he does ! I Ve heard him tell you that 
some of ’em here bored him, and they did n’t 
know how to talk ; but the mermaid don’t bore 
him. They laugh and say poetry and talk. You 
see, Ken need not have talked to her one mite 
to-day if it had bored him. He could have talked 
to the father, who knows Latin and such dull stuff, 
and I was willing to talk to the mermaid all the 
time. But Ken he had to keep talking to her, 
and he even tried to poke me off ; he said, ‘ Rich- 
ard, don’t you want to go down there and sail scal- 
lop shells } ’ when./ was the one that got up the 
picnic, mamma ! I consider that very mean of 
Ken. If he wanted scallop shells sailed, why did 
n’t he go sail ’em hisself } ” 

“All right, Richard,” said Mrs. Parvin, promptly 
concluding that the walk up the beach was not too 
long or hard. “You and I will go and see your 
mermaid to-morrow, and we will not tell Kenneth, 
and then he cannot be in your way.” 

“Oh, you are so sweet, mamma! And say, the 
mermaid makes lace things a great deal nicer 
than your very bestest collar. Maybe you ’ll want 


“/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOW: 


lOI 


to have her make you something. The other one, 
the little one, is making a screen for Ken, and the 
shells on it looked just like live. It is a copy of 
seaweeds all hanging down, bladder weeds with 
poppers on ’em, and red and yellow shells, conchs, 
lying round on sand. Saw it at the little house 
on the beach, mamma.” 

Mrs. Parvin made her preparations for a long 
walk up the beach, and concluded within herself 
that young men were just as much trouble to look 
after as young women. 

Only Letty was at home next day when Richard 
escorted his mamma to the house on the beach. 
Father, restless, had concluded to go to look after 
his lobster pots and do some bottom fishing, and 
as Faith was all out of work, she went with him 
to assure his return home without going to the 
wharf. 

“ Here ’s Ken’s screen, mamma, for Patty,” said 
Richard, doing the honors. 

“ I was very glad to get the order. This is slack 
time in fancy work, just now,” said poor Letty. 

Why, did you design that ? That is beautiful ! 
What a wonderful little spider crab this is peeping 
out from the weeds ! You should have been an 
artist ! ” cried Mrs. Parvin to Letty. 


102 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘‘ Faith brings me my patterns — seaweeds, 
flowers, shells, crabs, beetles, all sorts of natural 
things ; so it is easy to put them together,” said 
Letty. “ But I have often thought that if things 
had gone well with us, I should have liked to learn 
to paint. That would have been better than any- 
thing else.” 

“You look very cozy here,” said Mrs. Parvin ; 
“that is a real little boudoir by your window.”^ 

“ Faith did all that,” said Letty. “ Faith is so 
good to me.” 

And then from word to word these two, the 
easy, handsome woman from the city, happy, 
fortunate wife and mother, and the little dwarfed 
worker by the seaside, slipped into closer and 
closer confidence as they talked, finding their 
hearts near akin, the one being lonely and anx- 
ious and longing for a friend ; the other motherly 
and sympathetic, and both having kinship through 
the household of faith. Why, Letty even told 
how funds had grown low and work had failed, 
and she had prayed for more, and how she won- 
dered if she had done right to take this that Ken- 
neth had offered. It had seemed to her, Letty 
said, that she and Faith were set apart and not 
like other girls, for they belonged not to the 


«/ AM THE ELDEST, YOU KNOWT 


people among whom their Jot had been cast, and 
were exiled from the life where once they had 
belonged ; and was she not right in thinking that 
it was better that they should keep to themselves 
and not make acquaintances, or stir up discontent 
or longings for happier things that could not be ? 

Mrs. Parvin found Letty right in this. 

Then Faith’s work was shown, and Mrs. Parvin 
ordered several pieces at better prices than the 
stores offered. 

“And you must think it is really all right to 
take this work. I am not a flattering young man, 
and I think God really sent me here to see you,” 
said Mrs. Parvin. 

But Faith, when she came home and heard of 
the visit from Letty, flushed and frowned and 
seemed reluctant to take this work, although she 
felt compelled to do so. 

There was a large piece of timber buried in the 
sand near the house ; the moon was at full, mak- 
ing a path of splendor over the sea. Faith and 
Kenneth sat on that timber talking, as the even- 
ing wore away. They were a stone’s cast from 
Letty sitting in her window and father on the 
doorstep. 

“ It is all right,” said father ; “ it is better so.” 


104 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


But Letty shook her head. She could not be- 
lieve that. And when they were alone she took 
Faith’s hand: — 

^‘Dear Faith, you are only going to make 
yourself sad and discontented. This is not well. 
We were right when we said we would make no 
friends among these summer guests. We are not 
of their kind. You will listen to me, Faith, and 
give this acquaintance up } I know what is best 
for you ; I am the eldest, you know.” 

Faith was vexed ; but there was pathos as well 
as whimsicality in that plea of seniority made by 
this poor little sister, and the tall, handsome Faith 
bent down and hugged her to her heart. 


CHAPTER VII. 


FAREWELL ! FAREWELL ! 

“ Reach with your whiter hands to me 
Some crystal of the spring, 

And I about the cup shall see 
White lilies blossoming." 

T3 ALPH KEMP had now abstained from 
strong drink for a longer period than ever 
before in Letty’s recollection, and for the first 
time hope of his permanent reform entered into 
her heart. Heretofore he had mourned much 
that he had fallen, but had never seemed to make 
effort toward restoration ; he had been like 
Ephraim, thoroughly joined to his idols. 

Faith had no share in Letty’s new hopes ; her 
keener eyes detected already the symptoms of 
relapse — the moodiness and restlessness, the in- 
ertia. She expected every hour that he would 
disappear to the town and be gone for several 
days. 

She understood the reason of his recent absti- 
nence ; he had not been willing that Kenneth 

105 


I06 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

Julian should see him intoxicated. She knew that 
his self-restraint had been for her sake ; and she 
felt a certain gratitude that he cared enough for 
her to use even that much denial for her ; and she 
gave a bitter smile when she reflected how idle 
and ridiculous were the plans of her father in her 
behalf. Poor father! to base his dreams on a 
slight acquaintance with the guest of a summer, 
who in a few days would be gone forever and 
forget even their names ! 

Faith was not indulging in any foolish and 
baseless ideas, but there was something pathetic 
even in the absurdity of her father’s schemes. 
And now the summer waned and the first day 
of autumn had come, and soon the beach would 
be left to the few who lived near it the year 
round. 

I hate to leave this place,” said Kenneth, sit- 
ting on F'aith’s rocks and skipping little pebbles 
out over the water, as the tide was high and the 
sea calm. “ I think this is one of the most 
restful and serenely beautiful places I ever saw. 
It just suits you. Miss Faith.” 

‘‘That shows how very little you know about 
me,” said Faith. “ I am not restful or serene, 
and as for this place, it does not suit me at all ; 


FAREWELL! FAREWELL! 


107 


I hate it. It seems all very well for the bright 
warm summer days, but consider what it is in the 
long, cold desolation of the winter. Not a person 
in sight except ourselves, scarcely a bird even 
alive upon the beach ; no variety, no interests, 
nothing but stitch, stitch, stitch, Letty in her 
window and I in mine.” 

“ I can understand that that must be terrible,” 
said Kenneth. “ Was it wise for you to come 
and bury yourselves in this out-of-the-way place ? ” 

‘‘ It was all that we could do. We could not 
pay the rents or get the clothing fit for the city. 
We realized that what few old friends were left 
were tired of seeing us there. For ourselves, we 
could not endure to have our father disordered 
and intoxicated upon the streets before those who 
had known him as a man of large attainments and 
promise. We could do nothing with our terrible 
shame but come here and bury it. Oh, just as 
you cannot guess how bitter the winters are here 
in the cheerless silence, so you cannot guess how 
terrible is the lot of a drunkard’s family.” 

Faith’s eyes were full of tears, her lips trem- 
bled, her hands lay idle in her lap, holding 
the dainty work which she could not see to 
continue. 


io8 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


“Miss Faith,” said Kenneth gently, “ I know 
this is very terrible, very hard for you to bear, but 
yours is not the only story of this kind. How 
many other families are bearing the same burden ! 
How often it happens that the men that fall into 
this sin are the brightest, most generous, genial, 
lovable natures ! Their very virtues have betrayed 
them. Such men and their families have the 
warmest sympathies of those who know them. 
The burden of the sorrow of it is very great, but 
do you not exaggerate the burden of the disgrace 1 
Perhaps it was not well for you to sacrifice your- 
self for the sake of trying to hide your father.” 

“As things were, it was just as dreadful to be 
in the city as it is to be here. But here I feel 
narrowed and imprisoned, chained ! I feel as if I 
vegetate, as if my mind dwarfs and warps daily ! ” 

“ Why do you stay } ” said Kenneth. “ In the 
city you could find more congenial ways of mak- 
ing money than you have here. You might be 
a governess, you get on so well with children. 
Richard cannot find words enough to praise you. 
If you were with nice people who would be good 
to you, you could have all the advantages of the 
city — the lectures, concerts, churches, libraries; 
and you could help your sister also.” 


FAREWELL/ FAREWELL/ 


109 


“But I could not leave her alone ! ” cried Faith. 
“Do you suppose I could ever go away, even for 
twenty-four hours, and leave poor little Letty 
here } She has enough to bear in this world 
without my desertion. And Letty would not 
leave father, and I would not ; after all he is our 
father and we have our duty towards him to do ; 
and I don’t believe happiness could ever come in 
shirking duty.” 

“You are right,” said Kenneth. “If Letty 
must stay here, I don’t see how you could leave 
her. But if it is your lot to stay here. Miss Faith, 
I think you must brace up and make the best you 
can out of it.” 

“ I don’t see what that best is,” said Faith. 
“ More lace } I fill all my orders ; ” and she 
picked up her work again. 

“ Perhaps you make too much lace. Man doth 
not live by bread alone. Perhaps in this treadmill 
life you are neglecting some ways in which you 
could help and encourage yourself. Give yourself 
more time for reading. I have heard you say you 
used to be fond of French. Take it up again, 
and get interested in it. My sister and I read 
French together. We have plenty of books, and 
after we read them once or twice they are not 


no 


THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH. 


read again. We can send you all you want of 
them.” 

“I don’t want any of them,” said Faith, “thank 
you. If I want any books, my father can get 
Greek proof-reading to do, and take his pay in 
books. He said he could, and would.” 

“ By all means have him do it, then,” said Ken- 
neth. “ Brush up your French, try Italian, give 
yourself fresh intellectual outlook. It will occupy 
your mind and keep you from brooding. Besides, 
the day may come when you will need to use all 
the mental training you have. If anything should 
happen to your father, you could take your sister 
to the city and take care of her. And do you 
really get nowhere and see nobody all winter ” 

“ Nowhere ; hardly even to church. The near- 
est church is three miles off. Roads and weather 
need to be good for one to take that walk, and I 
must go alone ; Letty cannot walk so far, and 
father will not go. We are off any carriage road, 
and no one comes out here. We invite nobody, 
and want nobody. Winter before last the minister 
came out once. Last year they had no minister 
at the church, only supplies. Last winter Kiah 
Kibble was the only person who entered our house, 
except Luke Folsom, to see father about lobsters 


FAREWELL! FAREWELL! 


I I I 


once or twice. I wonder we do not get so stupid 
and awkward, Letty and I, that we do not know 
how to behave before people when we do see 
them ! ” 

Kenneth laughed. “Awkwardness was not born 
in you. But this winter, when Patty and • I are 
enjoying anything, I shall think of you and wish 
you could share it. But keep your courage up ; I 
don’t think you are one of the world’s disinher- 
ited ones : some good will open for you by and by. 
Only you know you can break down health and 
spirits by allowing yourself to brood and be dis- 
couraged. You must get books and read them to 
yourself and aloud, and you and Letty must sing. 
Perhaps the reading and singing will be a help to 
your father. Once I set myself as a task to see 
what God did to train his great workers and serv- 
ants, and I found one of his chief expedients 
was to send them into the desert. Did you 
ever notice that Moses went into the lonely 
desert of Midian and kept sheep there for forty 
years, almost a lifetime of our modern fashions. 
Elijah apparently was for many years a lonely 
recluse, waiting until God had his work ready 
for him. David kept sheep on the Judaean hills, 
and learned to govern the people by guiding 


I 12 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


and guarding his flock. Daniel was put to school 
in Babylon ; John the Baptist tarried in the des- 
ert until his manhood came ; our Lord himself 
grew up in the silence and obscurity of a village 
carpenters shop. I think it is not where we 
are or how we are situated that need make the 
difference : it is the using well the place where 
God puts us.” 

“ And could you have put all this sound philoso- 
phy in practice if your lot had been a hard one ? ” 
said Faith. “Your life has been very easy.” 

“ I know it has : and of course I cannot tell 
what I should do if I were tried. I might fail just 
where I should be strong. But the theory is a 
good one, no matter what my practice might be.” 

It was surely pleasanter to sit out here on the 
rocks and talk with Kenneth as she worked than 
to be alone there all day making her lace or to sit 
by Letty in the little house on the beach. She 
and Letty seemed to have so little to talk about, 
their lives were so narrow, and they grew silent in 
the miserable routine. A chat with Kenneth or 
a visit from the lively Richard had been some- 
thing to look forward to. 

And now Richard had come up to say good- 
by and to protest that he hated to go, and the 


FAREWELL! FAREWELL! I I3 

beach was twice as nice as the city, and he had 
never seen any one half as nice as his mermaid. 
He could not even say if he would be back next 
summer : mamma did n’t know. Would his dear 
mermaid come and visit him in the city for 
Christmas } 

“ No, indeed,” said Faith ; “ what would Letty do 
then } You must keep Christmas without me.” 

‘‘ Patty is very nice,” said Richard, “ but she 
does n’t come up with you. She does n’t under- 
stand fishing or crabs.” 

And then Kenneth had come up to say good-by 
and had left with father an armful of books, and 
had shaken hands and wished them well and 
was gone. 

“ When is he coming back } ” asked father. 

‘‘Never, I suppose,” said Faith. “People tire 
of out-of-the-way places like this in a summer and 
go somewhere else. Only those stay that must.” 

“And you and Letty stay here because of 
me,” said father. “ I should have built up your 
fortunes, but I have pulled them down.” 

“ We are all right and happy,” said Letty 
heartily, “so long as you are good. You will not 
touch that terrible poison again now, will you } ” 

“ It is idle, child, to count on me. Do you know 


1 14 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

how weak I am ? Do you know what this crav- 
ing thirst is ? I withstand more , temptation in 
a week than you and Faith will need to in your 
whole lives.” 

“Yes, father; but God is able to supply all 
your need ; he will make you strong. Father, it 
is but holding firm hour by hour. Ask God to 
keep you this hour, and when that is over, for 
the next and the next, and so hour by hour, for 
all the time.” 

“ What a life ! ” cried Ralph. “ What a mar- 
tyrdom ! Hanging over the edge of a precipice, 
and the only hope or prospect just to hold firm, 
minute by minute more ! What is such a life 
worth .? ” 

“And how much is our life worth here .^ ” 
said Faith wearily. The bitterness about her 
father’s case was that he did not want to try. 
“I wish,” said Faith, “that Kiah Kibble’s proph- 
ecies would come true now at once, and the world 
be all made over. In a reign of righteousness, 
a new world, with no poison made or sold, you 
and a great many more would be safe and happy. 
All the opportunities of the world for good would 
be open to you, and none for evil.” 

“ You do not seem to consider that some of us 


FARE WELL ! FARE WEL£! I 1 5 

would not fit a regenerated world any more than 
we should fit heaven. There would be nothing 
in common between us and it. I look back to 
days when I devoted myself to study and the 
duties of my classroom. All my interests and 
acquaintances were with literature and literary 
people. I enjoyed them then, but now I cannot 
see why or how I did. I have lost mental spring ; 
the desire, the possibility of the former life are 
gone. Oh ! I Ve had people talk to me and argue 
with me ; the old friends used to do it. They 
applied logic to allay a raving thirst ! They said 
I could, and I should ; that to choose the base 
was unworthy, when the high and noble might 
rather be chosen. The temperance people now 
come to you and tell you how bad your state is. 
Don’t you know it better than they can tell it ? 
How dangerous, how wicked, how miserable ! 
Yes ; that is all well known. They tell you what 
you must do to reform ; they ignore the fact that 
you have destroyed in yourself the possibility of 
preference for reform. And when you can’t and 
won’t follow their advice, as says Cicero in De 
Officiis, ^ folding up the rays of their illumination, 
as one folds up a fan, they dedicate you to the 
demon, and abandon you to night.’ And that is 


ii 6 rm HOUSE on the beach. 

where I belong, I suppose — too weak to be good, 
and too wicked to want to be good.” 

Faith was looking out over the sea in an 
apathy of gloom. If these were father’s views, 
what was the prospect but to sink lower and lower 
with each passing year ? Why strive } why not 
just drift } 

Poor Letty was crying. She did not want to 
cry ; when father was in one of these moods her 
tears angered him. He caught up his hat and 
went off with long steps, his head held down, a 
certain dogged determination for evil in his face. 

Letty and Faith looked at each other. 

‘‘O Letty ! ” cried* Faith, “why, why, why, why 
have we this hard lot } ” 

“ ‘ What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou 
shalt know hereafter,’” said Letty. “The time 
will come. Faith dear, when we shall see the why 
and the need-be of it all.” 

“You might make me feel that about sorrows, 
but not about sins,” said Faith. “I know ‘God 
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he 
any man.’ Father’s way is not God’s way.” 

“ But, Faith, we did not have the control of 
father’s life ; we did not choose our father. Here 
we are ; we had nothing to do with it. For us it 


FAJ^E WELL ! FARE WELL ! 1 1 7 

is sorrow and not sin, and all there is for us to do 
is just to trust God, and follow the way of duty 
step by step.” 

She was silent for a while, her face resting on 
her hand. Faith knew that she was praying. 
Then with a calm look she took up her work 
again. She had left all in her heavenly Father’s 
keeping. 

“ It is all well enough for Letty to wait,” said 
Faith. ** She cannot do anything else, poor little 
soul! But I am strong; I can act.” Then 
aloud : “ I will go after father, Letty, and help 
him against himself. I can overtake him ; I walk 
faster than he does.” 

‘‘He may be angry and — cross to you,” fal- 
tered Letty. 

“ No, he won’t ; he is sober still. And anyway 
he would not dare.” 

So Faith went out after her father. When she 
reached the ledge of rocks he was not to be seen 
along the beach. Where was he } She wondered 
that he had gone so fast as to be out of sight. 
Presently, as she looked here and there, she saw 
a figure rising from the long grass along a low 
ravine and moving toward a wooded hollow, half 
a mile away. It was father. Not on the road to 


Il8 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

town ! What was he doing there ? Faith pursued 
the way he had taken, going swiftly to come up 
with him, and at last entered the woods. 

It was very peaceful in there. The warm sun 
of September brought out the spicy odors of sweet 
fern, candleberry, fir, juniper, and pine. The 
shadows overhead were flecked with sunlight ; 
beneath, the tawny pine-needles carpeted the 
ground, and here and there aster or golden-rod 
lit the lower shadows as with a star. The birds 
were busy there ; the jays chattered, the catbird 
called, here perched a robin in his red vest, there 
a woodpecker in red, white, and black whirled 
about a tree. Up and down the trunks red squir- 
rels or striped chipmunks ran. Faith dearly loved 
this wood. There was a hollow in it — a moss- 
lined spot — where a delicious spring bubbled up 
clear and cold. She seldom had time to come 
here and enjoy these beauties, and then she must 
have come alone, as Letty could not have walked 
so far, and walking alone in the woods was not 
so pleasant. 

But where was her father } She could see 
nothing of him. She held her way to the spring. 
There he sat on the ground, his back toward 
her, bent a little forward. Suddenly a fear seized 


PARE WELL! FAREWELL! 


II9 

her. What was he doing there Something was 
wrong. She spoke out loudly : — 

** Father ! ” 

He started, turned — his left arm was laid bare, 
and as he turned Faith saw a wound and a red 
stream. She sprang forward and dropping on 
her knees cried : — 

Father ! father ! what is this ? ” 

** At last I have found courage to die,” said he. 
“So the did Stoics died; so Seneca died, having 
opened his veins.” 

Meanwhile Faith had found her handkerchief 
and had pulled from her neck a narrow black 
ribbon. She bound the ribbon tightly about his 
arm, twisted it closer by means of a little twig, 
scooped from the spring her hat full of water and 
poured it on the cut arm. “You have not cut an 
artery,” she said. “This is not serious. Here, 
let me bandage it with my handkerchief. O 
father! father! what has possessed you to do 
such a wicked deed.?” 

“ Why did you come. Faith .? If your voice had 
not startled me, I should have reached the artery, 
and in a little time all would have been over in 
a painless death.” 

“In a terrible and shameful sin, father, for 


120 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


which there would be no time for repentance. 
Could you go before God with self-murder on your 
soul ? Oh, why, why did you try this ? ” 

“I cannot hold it sin to take my life,” said 
Ralph. It came to me without my consent ; it 
is my heavy burden ; it is a hindrance and an 
injury to you and Letty. I could not find courage 
to live. My life is miserable, and I have a right 
to divest myself of it ; it is my own.” 

“This is cowardice,” said Faith. “You admit 
that yourself, father. And your own Stoics can 
tell you better things. Have they not written 
that man is God’s soldier, placed by him at the 
post of duty, and he has no right to lay down his 
arms or vacate his post, except when God gives 
the word ? Stand on guard, father, you must, 
until the Captain relieves you. Any soldier 
knows that.” 

“ Down yonder in the grass,” said Ralph, “ I lay 
on my face for a little and thought it out. I am 
a curse to you and to myself. It is better for me 
to die. You and Letty would have cried over it, 
but you could not have helped it.” 

“No,” said Faith, looking him firmly in. the 
eyes, “we could not have helped going through 
life pointed at as the suicide’s children, with peo- 


FAREWELL! FAREWELL! 


121 


pie hinting that this was hereditary, and that we 
would sometime take the same way out of our 
troubles. What kindness would that be to us, 
father 

Ralph slowly shook his head. ‘‘You think,” he 
said, “that I go back to drink as to a joy, to a 
pleasure, an indulgence that I love. You are 
mistaken, Faith. I go as one dragged by a 
strong chain, hating my bondage, unable to re- 
sist. Well has the Bible said, ‘ Strong drink shall 
be bitter to them that drink it.’ It is bitter as 
gall to me. It fills me with madness and a burn- 
ing pain, and always adds to my horrible weight 
of unrest. I tell you. Faith, sin is the chastise- 
ment of sin. The sinner carries in himself his 
penalty. To-day I came here to be freed at last 
of myself.” 

“You could not, father. Were your body lying 
here cold and still, you would yet be consciously 
yourself, through all eternity. Give me your 
hand. I am going to kneel here and ask God to 
grant me for you this one thing, that you shall 
not die by your own hand.” 

And having prayed. Faith, weeping, quietly led 
her prodigal father home. 


CHAPTER Vril. 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 

" Oh, madness to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 

When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear 
His mighty champions, strong beyond compare. 

Whose only drink was from the limpid brook.” 

B y the moonlight falling through the little 
window of their bedroom in the gable, 
Faith saw a small white-robed figure slipping out 
of bed and going gently down the stair. This 
was Letty, and Faith knew why she was wakeful 
and where she was going. But Faith neither 
stirred nor spoke ; she knew that Letty preferred 
to suppose her to be asleep, and so she seemed 
to be. Father, also wakeful in his back room 
below stairs, saw his door swing silently open and 
the short white figure stand as one listening. He 
spoke : — 

“ Letty child, why are you here } ” 

Letty stole across the floor and sat down on 

the side of the bed, passing her hand gently over 

122 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 1 23 

father’s face. Since father had been living so- 
berly it had been safe to put back various bits of 
furniture into his room. It was still a bare little 
place, — they were so very poor, — but Letty and 
Faith had done their ,best, and there was a big 
braided mat on the floor and a muslin curtain at 
the window and a white counterpane over the bed. 
Letty sat on the side of the bed. 

“ Father ! you won’t do it again, will you t ” 

Is it that which kept you awake, poor child ? 
No ; I will not try to take my own life again. If 
that, as Faith says, will make things worse for 
you, I will bide my time. But, Letty, in a case 
like mine, life itself becomes as heavy a punish- 
ment as can be borne. If Cain felt as I do, 
I should think he would have wanted every one 
that found him to kill him ! The very powers of 
the mind that are intended for our comfort and 
pleasure become our torment — memory, for in- 
stance. I have been lying here cursed by remem- 
brances. I thought of my bright boyhood, my 
early home, my first success, of your mother, of 
the fair promise of our life, and then how in a few 
years all this was changed and devastated by my 
sin ! I contrasted what I am with what we all 
might have been but for me. Your mother might 


124 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


Still have been alive, in a home worthy of her; 
you, Letty, would have been as tall and strong 
and beautiful as Faith. And both of you would 
have had all that can make life fair. And I have 
bartered all this for what For pleasure for any 
good } for a selfish joy .? No ; I have sold my life 
for naught, and have not increased my wealth by 
its price. What have I gained by sinning but 
continuous misery, shame, degradation, loss, de- 
spair.^ No need to tell me that sin is a hard 
taskmaster, and its wages death. I have tried 
it. What is this cruel habit which drags a man 
down until living is a continual hell.? Why 
should a man be as I am now, when he might 
have been like the angels that excel in strength ? 
Letty, God’s Nazirites have the best of it both 
in this world and in the world to come. Right- 
eousness is gain in this life as well as the next. 
Why can’t people see it that way .? ” 

His tone was high and excited. He tossed 
on his pillow ; his head and hands were hot. 
Letty passed her hand gently over his heated 
face. made you a pitcher of lemonade this 
afternoon, and have kept it cool for you,” she 
said. “I will bring it.” 

She went into the kitchen and came back, then 


WHEN WIN TEE SWEEPS THE SEA. 125 

held the pitcher to her father’s lips. “ Drink all 
you can, father; it will do you good.” 

“You are like a ministering angel to me, my 
poor little Letty. I have been the prey of a 
demon, and you have done all you can to fight 
the demon ; but it is of no use, Letty; he is too 
strong for both of us. I wonder how much I 
am to blame about it, child. Did I have some 
terrible inheritance that I could not help, could 
not overcome.^ I think there have been times 
when I tried. And then that weakness of my 
will — that was the most cruel inheritance of all. 
Sometimes I think I have been insane about this 
thing and am not responsible. I know very well 
that in keeping God’s commandments there is 
great reward. Then why didn’t I keep them.^ 
I wanted to, I think. Am I to blame ? ” 

“You ask me questions too hard for me, father. 
Try to go to sleep.” 

“Parents should be very careful about what 
inheritance they give to their children. Suppose 
some one of my ancestors loaded me with this 
drink curse ; he will have much to answer for. 
And there is Hugh,” continued father, with 
excitement. 

Yes, there was Hugh. Letty often thought 


126 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


about him, the jolly, kind-hearted boy. Was he 
like his father to drag a lengthened chain ? 

Kemp lay muttering to himself. Where Hugh 
was or what he was doing, Letty did not know, 
but they were both in God’s hand and so not so 
very far asunder; and though no words of hers, 
of love, warning, or entreaty could reach Hugh, 
her prayers could enter into the ear of God and 
have power with him who holds the hearts of all 
men in his hands. 

“ I ’ll sing for you, father, and you will try to 
go to sleep,” she said. 

And Faith, awake and mournful in the one 
room overhead, heard Letty softly singing, — 


How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
Is found for your faith in his excellent Word.” 


Next day Ralph Kemp was feverish and 
gloomy, and did not rise from his bed. He said 
he was sick, but wanted nothing. Faith walked 
over to the village to get lemons for him and 
beef to make him some broth. Then as she had 
no lace to make she took The Goblin and Kiah 
Kibble’s boy, at low tide, and they rowed up the 
beach to a little cove where oysters were found, 
and dug a few to cook for her father. 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 127 

Kiah Kibble was on the sand waiting for them 
when they came back. He noticed Faith’s de- 
spondent face. “ Keep up heart, Miss Faith,” he 
said ; the time hastens on, and before long this 
troubled age will have passed away and all evil 
will vanish and only good be known.” 

“ It will take a long time to get rid of all this 
evil that is here now, I think,” said Faith; “and 
a good many of the people in the world are no 
more fit for the new age than for heaven.” 

“ At the worst,” replied Kiah, “ life passes 
quickly, and when you reach my age you will 
find that all these troubles you are having seem 
light and short when you look back on them.” 

“ Even that thought does n’t cheer me up,” said 
Faith. “ I want some good here and now ; and 
years do not seem short to me, but even days 
seem very long ; ” and she picked up her little pail 
of oysters. 

Kiah looking at her, straight and strong and full 
of health and youthful vigor, as she stood there in 
her canvas shoes, her leather gloves, rough dress 
and hat and long apron of ticking, her outfit for 
oystering, scalloping, or fishing, thought that so 
much strength and beauty should make its own 
good cheer and that the life before her was surely 
long enough for much good to be in it. 


128 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

Don’t you be down-hearted, Miss Faith,” he 
said kindly. “ The good will come into your life 
before you know it. Live up to your name. 
There is nothing like faith to keep the heart 
easy.” 

“ I ’ve been idle too much lately,” said Faith, 
as she carried her oysters homeward. “I must 
have more work to keep me from brooding ; and 
then we are getting terribly short of money, and 
even such shabby clothes as Letty and I wear 
give out and must be replenished. If I don’t 
have orders by to-morrow, I must make work for 
myself somehow. I wonder if I could make any- 
thing by going out cranberry-picking } ” 

She stood on the dune behind Kiah Kibble’s 
shop and looked toward the big marsh. The 
cranberry-picking had begun. It was a bright 
scene that the afternoon sun lit up and Faith 
paused to enjoy it. The green marsh was scat- 
tered over with groups of pickers, men, women, 
and children. The old refuse clothing of the 
year is reserved for the picking, and a gay assort- 
ment of odds and ends of many wardrobes ap- 
pears on the marshes. Pink, blue, and green sun- 
bonnets ; plaid and red shawls ; all colors of calico 
or flannel gowns ; blue and white and scarlet ends 


PVJ/EN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 1 29 

of neck scarfs fluttering in the breeze; red and 
blue flannel shirts; green and yellow and red 
flannel petticoats over which light-colored cotton 
gowns are kilted high. The tin pails shine in 
the sun ; the new barrels take a pale primrose- 
yellow tint. Along the edge of the marsh the 
fall flowers are in their splendor ; just beyond 
them are drawn up spring wagons, saddled horses, 
shabby buggies and sulkies, in which the pickers 
arrived. The screens, tended each by three or 
four men or girls, the big blue wagons loaded 
with the newly filled barrels, the tally keepers 
in chairs on little platforms, the inspectors stalk- 
ing like tall cranes among the stooping pickers 
— all this makes a busy scene, full of color and 
intense life. 

“They say it is not unhealthy work and is 
pleasant when one is used to it,” said Faith to 
herself. “ Letty and I have never wanted to be 
thrown with the rest of the people that way, but 
if we must, we must. I wonder if I can earn 
much at first, and if it will not spoil my hands for 
the lace.” 

But next day Faith had to go to the village with 
Letty’s work, and there were letters. One was 
to her with an order for six handkerchiefs for a 


130 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

bride’s trousseau — wanted at once — and one for 
Letty from New York. 

Letty came out to meet her, her finger on her 
lips. “ Father is asleep at last, and I ’m so glad. 
Poor man! he has just moaned and moaned and 
mourned for hours. Do you think he is getting 
softening of the brain. Faith V 

“No; it is just mental and bodily weakness 
from lack of his usual stimulant. Let us sit 
down out here, Letty. Here is a letter for you. 
I am sure it is about Hugh. It is from Mr. Julian 
I am certain, and written to you because you are 
the eldest, you know.” 

Letty was so tremulous with joy she could 
scarcely open the letter. 

“Yes! four big pages, and signed ‘Your sin- 
cere friend, Kenneth Julian.’ O Faith, isn’t this 
grand } What beautiful writing ! — 

I found Mr. Tom Wharton’s address and went 
there on some business I had raked up in the 
gutta-percha line. I asked for your brother, intro- 
duced myself, and in the course of conversation 

said, “ I met some people of your name on 

beach this summer. Were they relatives, do you 
think } ” “ Probably not,” he said ; but I went on 

— “A Mr. Ralph Kemp, formerly a professor of 
literature or Latin, and Miss Letty and Miss 


PV//£J\^ WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 131 


Faith.” He interrupted me : My sisters ! Did 
you really see them ? How are they ? ” and then 
no end of questions. I answered as I best could, 
telling only what I had agreed with Miss Faith 
should be told. Evidently you are not forgotten, 
and are as dear to him as he is to you. A fine 
lad, I think ; very fine, hearty, frank, friendly, 
honorable. I will not tell you what I said of you 
both. Written, it might seem as if I tried to 
flatter you ; but it was the least I could say. 
He told me how it was that you had been parted 
so from him. He said at his sisters’ instance and 
earnest advice he had given that pledge not to 
communicate with them until he was twenty-one. 
He thought the promise wrong, and often had 
more than half a mind to tell his uncle it was 
an iniquity, and that he must take it back and go 
to visit his sisters. 

• 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” cried Faith, “ he must not ; it is 
better so.” 

“ He must not take back his word,” said Letty. 
“He must stay there. We could not have him 
come here to this house and see father as he is.” 

“You must write to Mr. Julian and tell him to 
say to Hugh that if he loves us, he will stay with 
uncle and fulfill his pledges in every particular 
and make of himself the best that he can ; that 
we have learned to consider our uncle’s way right 
and wise.” 


132 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“ I will write to-night,” said Letty. Then, read- 
ing again : — 

I advised him to take no step of the kind with- 
out your consent. I told him that I would tell 
you how he felt, and that it would be well to be 
guided by your judgment. The opening in life 
that he has with his uncle is a good one. Mr. 
Wharton, he tells me, — and other people also tell 
me, — is a man stubborn and whimsical, but also 
thoroughly upright and just ; a man to be relied 
on and who, in spite of his crochets, is of excel- 
lent judgment. Your brother invited me to call 
upon him one evening, and I did. The house is 
handsome and pleasant, well provided with books 
and pictures, and Mr. Wharton was hospitable. 
Of course I did not mention any of you before him. 

see clearly,” said Letty, laying down the 
letter, “what is our duty. We must ask Mr. 
Julian to earnestly warn Hugh to observe strictly 
all that he has promised our uncle, and we, on 
our part, must have no secret communication with 
him through anybody. Now we know how Hugh 
is getting on and how he lives, and he knows 
that we are living and love him as ever. That is 
enough, and more than we had expected. Two 
years longer it will be, and no more, until Hugh 
is twenty-one. To-morrow will be his nineteenth 
birthday; then in two years he can come to us. 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA, 1 33 

Two years will not seem long ; we have lived 
through six. I will write to Mr. Julian to-night 
and thank him and tell him what I want, and tell 
him also that it is best that I should not write 
again, for that would be a way of evading the 
strict keeping of our promise.” 

“Yes,” said Faith. “Let me see the letter, 
Letty. What is this heading } ‘Julian & Wood- 
row, Real Estate Brokers.’ So that is his 
business ! I did not know. Once he told me 
that he graduated at college three years ago, and 
that he had been since then to Europe and had 
made a trip south and to California and to the 
Northwest, looking up the real estate business. 
Dear me, Letty, it must be worth while living, 
to be a man and able to go to places and see and 
do things ! Look here ! Why don’t you ask me 
what my letter is about ^ It is about six handker- 
chiefs that I am to make. That is not as good 
luck as to dabble in real estate, is it } ” 

“That depends upon whether your dabbling 
results in losing or gaining. It would be less dis- 
tressing to bungle on a handkerchief than to lose 
a big sum in real estate business.” 

“ The excitement of the work would be worth 
something,” said Faith. “However, this order 


134 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


keeps me from going to the marshes to pick 
cranberries, and I should have hated to leave you 
alone all day, Letty.” 

“ Nothing seems hopelessly bad when we are 
together,” said Letty; ‘‘and now that we have 
heard from our brother, how happy I am ! ” 

When one lives in a dungeon, a very small ray 
of sunlight seems comparatively brilliant. When 
one has long lived in gloom and despondency, 
some small turn for the better in affairs may raise 
the spirits remarkably. This hearing from Hugh, 
or rather of Hugh, although they should not be 
able to see him for two years, and had no hope 
of hearing directly from him in that time, shed 
unaccustomed brightness into the lives of Faith 
and Letty. 

Letty sang at her work, in thought following 
Hugh about his daily business, fancying the com- 
modious home where he lived, a home over which 
no shadow of dishonor had fallen. She imagined 
what Hugh’s life might be in the years to come, 
a reputable business man with a handsome home. 
Should she and Faith ever go to visit him in that 
home.^ She would be sure never to tell him of 
some sad days they had lived through with father. 
His father must stand before him with as un- 
clouded a memory as possible. 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 1 35 

Should they tell their father what they had 
heard about Hugh ? The sisters consulted about 
that in whispers, after they had gone to bed ; they 
concluded that they had better say nothing, it 
was so very uncertain how father would take 
anything. He had no expectation of hearing 
from or of Hugh, and Faith said to Letty that 
it was well to let well enough alone, and bad 
might he made worse by meddling. Still it was 
natural to wish to tell some one of their good 
news, and Letty told Kiah Kibble the first time 
that they went down to the boathouse to sit for 
an hour or two. 

Mr. Kemp, after lying in bed for a week and 
sitting dully about the house for another week, 
became very restless ; he wanted to go out in The 
Goblin and he wanted to go to Kiah Kibble’s, and 
when he was cruising in The Goblin he was likely 
to direct his course to the wharf and to danger. 
When he was at Kiah’s he kept looking toward 
the distant cluster of roofs and steeples that 
marked the town. It was borne in upon the 
daughters that the days of their father’s absti- 
nence were numbered, and their sum was very 
nearly told. 

“Come, Mr. Kemp,” said Kiah, “active work 


136 the house on the beach 

is what you want ; swing a mallet or a hammer, 
or handle a saw. Take hold here with me, and I 
will tell you what to do. Never mind if you do 
spoil a bit of lumber.” 

“ My muscle is all gone,” said Mr. Kemp. 
“ I have no grip left. See how flabby my arm is. 
And I Ve no taste for work ; it seems as if I 
could n’t take hold. My interest in everything 
is gone. And then, when I consider what I was, 
the high place I held and the higher place I 
might have reached, I can’t come down to manual 
labor.” 

“ I consider any kind of manual labor a coming 
up from doing nothing,” said Kiah. “ I ’m dead 
sure that the Lord hates idlers.. He set man 
work to do in Eden before he fell, to help keep 
him from falling, and after he fell he made him 
work harder, to keep him out of further mischief. 
I delight in work.” 

Sic se res habet : te tua^ me delecta7tt meUy' said 
Mr. Kemp with a grand air, “ which I will trans- 
late for you, Mr. Kibble, freely : ‘ So the world 
goes : my affairs interest me, yours interest you.’ 
I have no interest in mallets and oakum ; you 
have none in Latin.” 

“Well, here comes Luke Folsom,” said Kiah in 


WHEN WINTER SWEEPS THE SEA. 1 37 

a low voice. “ Don’t let him lead you off ; I see 
he has a jug in his hands. For your daughters’ 
sake.” 

Luke came near. Kiah, mindful of the sisters 
sitting in the shade of the shop, was cold and 
curt with him. ‘‘Take yourself along, Luke. 
That bucket of yours carries what I don’t ap- 
prove of.” 

“ It never hurt me,” said Luke. “ I ’m man 
enough to hold my own ; I ’m no tippler, and I ’m 
no temperance crank. When I want a drink I 
take it.” 

“ There is nothing very wonderful or very 
manly in that,” said Kiah. “ My dog does the 
same, but my dog goes beyond you ; he don’t 
take a drink when he don’t want it, as many men 
do ; and he don’t take a drink that will hurt him 
either. He takes what nature made for him.” 

“ I suppose at this rate you ’ll not take a drink 
of my beer,” said Luke. “Won’t you have some, 
Kemp } ” 

“No,” said Ralph with dignity. “I don’t like 
beer. It is a very coarse, vulgar drink. The an- 
cients said it was merely a corrupt similitude of 
wine.” 

Luke laughed. “Are you putting on temper- 
ance, Kemp.J^” 


138 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


‘‘Get you gone, Folsom,” said Kibble. “When 
a man sets himself to tempt his neighbor he is a 
true yokefellow of the devil.” 

And so in sorrow and in cheer the autumn 
passed and now November winds moaned across 
the sea. 


CHAPTER IX. 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE, 


Temperance is a tree which has content for a root, and for fruit, 



OW at last it seemed that Ralph Kemp’s 



^ final effort at reform had come to naught, 
for the little money which he had gathered during 
the summer was dissipated in drink. There were 
days when the two daughters sat alone at their 
work, too sad to speak, not knowing where their 
father was, but sure that he was doing very 
badly ; and there were nights when he did not 
come home. There were also days when he came 
home possessed of the demon alcohol, and Letty 
locked him in his room, in his dull stage of drunk- 
enness, that he might be safe during the stage of 
violence. 

There ’s no use in having any more hope,” 
said Faith. We were idiots to be deceived, or to 
lay out any effort at helping on a reform. We 
might have known it could not last. I never did 


139 


140 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


think it would in reality. You can’t place depend- 
ence on men anyhow. If they fail of being regu- 
lar fiends, the women of the house have much to 
be thankful for, and should accept with patience 
all sorts of small disorders and annoyances.” 

“O Faith, don’t speak so!” said Letty. “Think 
how many good men we have known of. Hugh 
will be a good man, and there is Uncle Wharton.” 

“He’s a sample of what I said,” retorted 
Faith. “ Because he does not trample the whole 
moral law underfoot, and is only surly and stub- 
born and cranky, we must call him good f I sup- 
pose as men go he is a pattern.” 

“Kiah Kibble is a very good man,” suggested 
Letty. 

“No doubt. He would be a treasure in a fam- 
ily. He neither steals, swears, drinks, nor fights, 
— he only forgets to clean his nails, shaves but 
once a week, sits in the house with his hat on, 
and goes to table in his shirt sleeves.” 

“ But that is the way he was brought up I ” 
cried Letty. 

“ Of course ; and I expect he just luxuriated in 
being brought up in that way. Men take to all 
sorts of horrid fashions as readily as ducks do to 
water,” 


AT CHRISTMAS TIDE, 


I4I 

Letty could not help laughing. 

‘‘At least, Faith, there is Mr. Julian. I fancy 
he is all right, both mannerly and morally.” 

“ If we knew him better, we should find out 
that he has more faults than there are hairs on 
his head ! If his faults are not loud and assertive, 
going beforehand to judgment, it must be because 
his aunt Mrs. Parvin and his sister Patty have 
taken him well in hand. Don’t you suppose, 
Letty, that when our father began to go astray 
our mother might have stopped it ? She might 
have had him bound hand and foot, and kept him 
prisoner until he not only promised to do better 
but was afraid not to do better. For the sake 
of her children, she should have taken extreme 
measures. Think what a burden we have to 
bear.” 

Letty shook her head. 

“ I think it could not have been done.” 

“ I read of a lady,” said Faith, “ who, the first 
time that she found her husband intoxicated, had 
his head shaved, mustard plasters and leeches put 
on, and treated him as a case of brain fever, and 
would not allow him afterwards to convince her 
that it was anything but brain fever. She said 
she knew the symptoms and the remedies, and she 


142 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


should always apply them ; she should not allow 
him to die of brain fever. And he did n’t dare 
to have it after the second attack either.” 

“I hope that is more than a made-up story,” 
said Letty. 

“ It ought to be. There is real good sense in 
it,” replied Faith. 

Letty noticed that Faith was more despondent 
over their troubles and more fitful in her moods 
than formerly. Her courage under privations and 
disappointment seemed to be failing. She was 
no longer full of funny speeches and snatches of 
song. Letty had now often to provide fortitude 
for two and to care for all the little affairs of 
daily life which Faith at last seemed to consider 
of no consequence. 

Winter was always hard on Faith. She was 
deprived of the free life of the beach ; her rocky 
bower was covered with sleet ; the ships now kept 
far out at sea ; the harbor was desolate ; scarcely 
a bird was to be heard. Wind, cold rain, sharp, 
icy storms rendered out-of-door life impossible. 
Letty had fairly to importune Faith to go to the 
town to purchase the usual clothing which they 
provided early in the winter and made up as they 
had leisure. 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE. 


143 


A lover of books and of beauty, shut out from 
both, Faith sat at her routine of lace work with 
a heavy heart. 

Letty exerted herself to cheer and encourage 
her. She planned for the future. 

“Hugh will be established after a while and 
have a nice home, and then you must go and live 
with him. It will be only right. Faith — one for 
Hugh, one for father. I will stay with father 
and you will always write, and you and Hugh 
will send us presents to help keep father’s mind 
occupied.” 

“ Do you think I would ever leave you, Letty ? 
Am I such a selfish coward as that } No one 
could persuade me — Hugh, nor any one. I shall 
stay by you and share your lot as long as we two 
live. Do you think I would have a moment’s 
happiness if I went away and left all this heavy 
burden resting on you, you poor little patient 
soul.?” 

But while Letty and Faith thought for each 
other, there were those who thought for them 
both. Hugh Kemp had not failed to cultivate 
the acquaintance of Kenneth Julian, and Kenneth 
encouraged him to an intimacy. True, neither 
Hugh nor Kenneth heard any more from Faith 


144 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


and Letty, but it seemed to Hugh that he was in 
closer communication with his sisters when he 
saw one who had passed the summer near them. 
Hugh began to spend an evening frequently with 
Kenneth and Patty, and when the weather was 
gloomy and winter made its coming particularly 
obvious, they spoke of the dreary lives of the 
sisters in the house on the beach. 

“ Let me tell you something to do,” cried Patty 
one evening. “ Let us send them a Christmas 
box. We three will pack it here, some evening. 
We will make it a real treat, with all sorts of 
things in it to help tide over the dreary weather.” 

“ Good ! ” cried Kenneth ; it takes girls to think 
of real sensible things like that. Here I have 
been wishing — which is merely vain wishing, and 
I know it — that they could be got away from the 
beach, but Patty goes straight to the mark and 
tries some way of making them happier where 
they are. I don’t know how good political econo- 
mists women would be ; I think they have never 
had a chance in that line ; but there was never 
a man could match them in domestic economy, in 
making the best out of a bad bargain, in adminis- 
tering upon a defeat, in well applying littles.” 

“ On the ground that ‘ Who is faithful in little 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE. 


H5 

will be faithful also in much,’ ” said Hugh, we 
must consider that the only reason why women 
have not been shining lights in political economy 
is because they never have had opportunity. Miss 
Patty, I thank you with all my heart for your kind 
thought. When shall we set about this.^” 

“At once,” said Patty, “so that the box will 
surely be there by Christmas. I wonder how they 
will know that it is at the station and how they 
will get it over.” 

“I will write to Kiah Kibble,” said Kenneth, 
“to get it for them.” 

“ Then be sure to say that your sister and Mr. 
Kemp’s son are the ones who send the box. 
These young ladies would not want Mr. Kibble or 
any one else to think that they get boxes from 
stray young men.” 

Hugh gave a grateful look at the plump and 
beaming Patty. 

“Send your parcels here, both of you. And, 
Kenneth, you hunt up a box and next Monday 
night we will pack it,” said Patty, all enthusiasm 
at the idea. “Kenneth, pull that stand around 
this way. I hear Ann in the hall, and I know she 
has a tray of refreshments for us — tiny sand- 
wiches, chocolate, macaroons, and olives. I will 


146 THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH, 


go call Uncle Doctor to share with us, and then 
he’ll want a little music and a game of some 
kind.” 

Let us put some games in the box,” said Ken- 
neth. “ They may amuse Mr. Kemp ; and I shall 
send him three or four copies of some beautiful 
new editions of his favorite classics.” 

“ I wish you could tell me father’s size near 
enough so that I could send him a suit of clothes 
and an overcoat,” said Hugh to Kenneth, with a 
blush that his father through his own faults must 
be in need of such presents. 

“I believe I can, near enough,” said Kenneth 
in a hearty way that took existing facts as a mat- 
ter of course, and somewhat relieved the situation. 

“ We had to look out for a real large box, Mr. 
Kemp,” said Patty on Monday evening, “when 
your parcels began to come. Did you buy out a 
whole shop.^ You must have spent a fortune!” 

“ Oh, no, I did not ; but my uncle has given me 
a liberal salary foy two years, and as I have scarce- 
ly any expenses, I have a nice little fund laid up. 
I ’ll show you my things.” 

“Do,” said Patty; “and I’ll exhibit mine and 
Kenneth’s. I hope yours are useful, for Ken and 
I bought nonsense, except the books.” 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE. 


147 


Hugh laid aside two large parcels. Those are 
just for father,” he said; “you won’t care to see 
them. Here, I bought each of the girls a shawl 
and a dozen handkerchiefs, a pair of these pretty 
worked white aprons, some collars and cuffs and 
neckties, which they can divide as they like. And 
there is an envelope for each of them with my pic- 
ture — one just taken, one two years ago.” He 
did not mention that with each picture there was 
a five-dollar bill. 

“ And what is this soft lovely stuff ? ” cried 
Patty, “ dress goods ? Oh, what good taste you 
have ! And these shawls ! ” 

“A dress for each of them. Will they really 
like it, do you think ? Camel’s hair they call it.” 

“ Of course they ’ll like it. I think it beautiful. 
This dress will suit a tall fair girl so well. And 
this pattern is for the dear little Letty. How 
I should like to see them both ! Well, your 
presents will be worth getting. See these three 
engravings from Kenneth. Don’t you think the 
narrow dainty frames are just the thing He said 
he wanted them to have something pretty to look 
at. And see these books .? These in paper are 
French ones for Faith, and an Italian grammar 
and dictionary and two books, so she will try to 


148 the house on the beach 

learn Italian. Kenneth says she needs more to 
occupy her mind and divert her thoughts. And 
I send this glove case with gloves in it, and this 
plush case of perfumery and this pair of pretty 
vases ; and how do you think they will like these } 
— Huyler’s best candies and a box of crystallized 
fruits and this box of nuts ! That box has fruit 
in it packed so nicely, and those two tin cans have 
good things, I can tell you ! One is full of maca- 
roons and the other of gingersnaps, and I am so 
fond of olives and preserved ginger that I send a 
jar of each. I hope they don’t break ! Would n’t 
that be truly horrible } ” 

**We will pack carefully. Suppose we wrap 
each picture in a shawl. What a lovely pathetic 
thing this ^ Return of the Mayflower ’ is — the 
Pilgrim men and women standing on the beach 
watching the vessel fade away on the horizon line ! 
Their last link to England is severed. ‘ F'aithful 
unto Death,’ that seems to be the motto of their 
lives. And this is such a charming seaside pic- 
ture — ‘ Cupid in Vacation.’ I have looked at that 
so often ! ” 

“Ken says that young woman is the exact 
picture of your sister Faith. He says he never 
saw her without thinking of the picture, and 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE. 


149 

never sees the picture without thinking of her. 
She must be very beautiful.” 

“She is,” said Hugh. “I was only thirteen 
when I left her, and I had always thought that 
my sister Faith was one of the brightest, most 
perfect creatures I ever saw. I remember when 
we were out in the street together people would 
constantly turn to look after her and say, ‘ What 
a lovely girl ! ’ and she was never aware of it. 
She never thought of her appearance, and was 
just as easy and self-forgetful as a child of three.” 

“You will be very happy when in two years 
you go to see them.” 

“At that time,” said Hugh, “I shall do more 
than go to see them. Those two girls are not to 
be left to fight the world and care for father alone. 
A pretty brother I would be to allow that ! What 
sort of a son to my dead mother will I be if I 
neglect her daughters ? All that reconciles me 
to this present waiting and to keeping the bar- 
gain that Letty made for me is that so I am 
getting into a position where one day I can effi- 
ciently help them.” 

The box was not finally nailed up until after 
eleven that night. Kenneth and Hugh decided 
upon certain partitions in it to keep Patty’s pet 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


150 

jars and the heaviest books from wrecking Huy- 
ler’s bonbons or assailing the engravings. It 
would have been a pity to have that engraving 
of The Angelus ruined! 

“It is good luck that Uncle Doctor is off to- 
night,” said Patty, as, tired and flushed, the three 
sat down to share the tray of refreshments which 
had long been waiting for them. 

“Uncle Doctor is something of an autocrat, 
and wants his house closed at half-past ten; no 
visitors allowed later. Our old cousin Jenny, 
though, is not so severe with us and she does n’t 
mind it a bit.” 

“ I ’ll eat my sandwiches and fly before Uncle 
Doctor comes in!” cried Hugh. “I don’t want 
to be marked out of his good books. I had 
fancied him rather friendly to me. I shall have 
all I can do to make peace with Uncle Tom, for 
he never leaves his library until I am in, and I 
am almost never out in the evening late. In 
fact, we usually go together, and this place is 
almost the only place I go without him. On the 
whole, I don’t think a little strictness about hours 
hurts us young folks.” 

“It does not,” said Kenneth. “I’ve made up 
my mind from what I have seen that young men 


AT CHTISTMASTIDE. 


I51 

who spend every evening in society or amuse- 
ment, and young women ditto, make very little 
that is really valuable of themselves.” 

Out of the city and along the lines of railroad 
went that famous box, and finally Kiah Kibble 
rolled it into a heavy springless beach cart drawn 
up against the station platform. Kiah felt as if 
he were having a grand Christmas himself, in the 
joy of taking this box to the shadowed house on 
the beach. What a surprise it would be to them ! 
He would roll it in, open it for them, and hand 
Letty that little note, which merely said : — 

“ Mr. Kemp’s son and my sister have prepared 
a Christmas surprise for Miss Letty and her sis- 
ter. Will you see that the box reaches them on 
Christmas eve.^ 

Kenneth Julian.” 

Then he would go away and in peace by his 
own fireside he would read : — 

“ The time draws near the birth of Christ : 

The moon is hid; the night is still; 

A single church below the hill 
Is pealing, hidden in the mist. 

— Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed. 

Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 


152 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old, 

Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free. 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 

Ring out the darkness of the land. 

Ring in the Christ that is to be." 

Letty and Faith had given him those three 
sections of “ In Memoriam,” printed large and 
clear, and in a little border of their own painting, 
and next to his Bible it was Kiah Kibble’s favorite 
reading. He carried out his plan, delivered the 
box, opened it, and went his way, although both 
the girls asked him to stay and see what was in 
the box. 

“ No, no ; I ’ll come again, and then you can 
show me what you like,” said Kiah. 

He is a real heart-gentleman^ if he does eat in 
his shirt sleeves,” said Faith ruefully. 

Oh, what work, what excitement in unpacking 
that box! Father was at home and sober, and he 
shared in the joy. True joy it was for him to 
know that the absent son had not forgotten him, 
for father loved his children well, though he 
had been all unable to exercise self-restraint for 
their sakes. For Letty “The Return of the May- 


AT CHRISTMASTIDE. 1 53 

f»- and two books were marked **From Ken- 

rct4i Julian”; but Faith received a Benjamin’s 
portion. The two pictures, heaps of books, two 
boxes of bonbons — all were marked, “Miss Faith, 
from Kenneth Julian.” Faith flushed rosy with 
delight ; the dimples played in her lovely rounded 
cheeks. 

“That picture looks just like you. Faith,” said 
her father. “ I am sure he saw the likeness. 
Mr. Julian has not forgotten you, it seems.” 

“ I wish Mr. Julian had not sent things,” cried 
Letty, distressed; “nor his sister — only our 
Hugh.” 

“ You might let me take a little comfort,” said 
the excited Faith, suddenly beginning to cry with 
the vicissitudes of her feelings. 

“ Letty,” said her father, “ if you knew your 
Cicero as well as I do, you would remember that 
he says, * Virtues overdrawn are all liable to be- 
come vices.’ So it is with you, my child. Your 
prudence is exaggerated into prudery. You are 
not kind to Faith.” 

“ She is ! ” sobbed Faith. “ She is a little angel, 
and I am silly.” 

“ I am real glad,” said Letty, “ that you have the 
books and the pictures ; they will be something 


154 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


to cheer you up in dull weather. We will write 
and thank them all.” 

*^We will write a joint letter and send it to 
Hugh,” said Faith. 

Father took great interest in hanging the pic- 
tures and putting the books in place. When that 
was done, he said he had a little money in his 
pocket and he would go to the nearest farm and 
buy cream, butter, and a fowl, so that they could 
have a nice Christmas dinner with the treat of 
fruit, olives, and other good things that had been 
sent them. 

Letty made up a little box of fruit and candy 
to give to Kiah Kibble for himself and the boy. 
“ Father shall take it over,” she said ; “ and you 
and I will get up a lovely dinner and put on our 
new aprons and ties and plan how to make our 
dresses and have a delightful Christmas.” 

Faith sat with half a dozen books in her lap. 
She seemed to have forgotten what Letty had 
said about Kenneth’s gifts, and her face was once 
more radiant. 

Letty looked at her and her heart ached. 
Upon this altar which Faith had raised to joy 
fell the prelibation of Letty’s secret tears. 


CHAPTER X. 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 

There is a devil in every berry of the grape. — The Koran. 

TI7OR a little time that Christmas box wrought 
in the house on the beach all that its 
senders had hoped. Father, arrayed once more 
in the garments of gentility, seated in his arm- 
chair, with a Greek or Latin book in his hands, 
discoursed to his daughters of his favorite lore. 
The daughters, meanwhile, • were not doing work 
for other people and for bread. It was a slack 
time just now, after Christmas, and no orders 
were to be filled, so the sisters set about making 
their own dresses. The material was pretty ; the 
work, in father’s opinion, was suitable for young 
ladies. As for the house, people lived in any 
kind of a house, picnic style, on the beach, and 
people also went to the seaside even in winter 
for health. Thus father comforted himself, and 
addressed his children : — 

‘‘Now is a time, my dear girls, when we can 
return to your long-interrupted education. If 

155 


156 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

things had been so that you could have pursued 
your studies without ceasing, you would now be 
able to understand these works, translating for. 
yourselves mentally as rapidly as I could read 
them. As it is, I will read a clause and construe 
to you. It will be a benefit. The volume I hold 
in my hand is the Mostellaria of Plautus, and a 
very nice edition too.” 

“ But I don’t know what Mostellaria means, to 
begin with,” said Letty. 

It probably means The Ghosts. It is a play 
based on superstitions of haunted houses — ghosts, 
or what are called in Tennessee and other places 
haunts, pronounced hunts and harnts ; for our 
English language is often vilely mispronounced.” 

“ I ’ve no doubt Latin was also in the time of 
it,” said Faith. Don’t you suppose the street 
cleaners and the aqueduct builders and the labor- 
ers on the Alban hills pronounced the Latin very 
differently from the style of Cicero or Ovid.? 
I do ; and perhaps if the ghosts of the guests of 
Lucullus could rise up in our college class rooms 
to-day, their hair, if they had any, would stand on 
end, to hear the way our best scholars pronounce 
the tongue of Rome.” 

“ I am delighted. Faith, to see that you take an 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT 1 57 

interest in these subjects and can talk brightly 
upon them. It is an added pleasure in reading 
Plautus aloud to know that he is appreciated by 
you,” responded her father with dignity. 

So the father read sonorously, and the girls 
sewed. 

“ I don’t appreciate him at all, if by appreciat- 
ing you mean to admire him,” cried Faith pres- 
ently. “ I think he is coarse, vulgar, and trashy. 
If I were reading a book opening with the coarse 
quarrel of a couple of slaves, and with no higher 
theme than the waste, idleness, vice, lying, and 
entirely unfilial conduct of a young man who has 
been trusted by his father, and who shows no man- 
ner of filial respect or affection, you would say I 
had very low taste — if the book were in English.” 

“ But, Faith,” said the astounded sire, this is 
Latin.” 

“ I ’m glad it is anything but English, for books 
of low moral order are a bane to nations,” re- 
torted Faith ; “ and if it is Latin, that does n’t 
make it better reading. A person with smallpox 
is none the less dangerous for being wrapped up 
in a satin nightgown. You know very well that 
this Plautus was a plagiarist from the Greeks, 
and that he pitched his plays to the key of the 


158 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

low taste of slaves and to the most degraded 
of the rabble, who were in his time the only 
theater-goers. What I want to know is, why dull, 
vicious books should be tolerated, even praised, 
because they were written nineteen hundred or 
two thousand years ago, in Latin. There are 
beautiful and noble books in Latin — Virgil and 
Cicero and the historians. I read some of them 
to you, and you have read some of them to me ; 
and I don’t think these coarse low books should 
be read merely because they are not English. 
Who wants to hear how slaves fight and jeer 
and lie } and how a poor old white-headed man 
was fooled.?” 

Women are given to very narrow views,” said 
her father sagely. “ These works are a picture of 
the times, and from them we get ideas of the 
manners and morals of the times.” 

“ Only of the worst parts of the manners and 
morals,” said Faith. Books might be written 
now of the doings of thieves and prize fighters, 
and books in the idioms of people who cannot 
pronounce English decently and never speak 
grammatically, and in two thousand years they 
ought not to stand as a fair presentation of our 
manners or language.” 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 159 

“They would of those of a part of the popu- 
lation, my dear child.” 

“ A part so worthless that it might as well be 
forgotten,” said Faith. 

“You are taking too narrow views of things,” 
said Ralph Kemp, drawn back by his daughter’s 
arguments to the days of his professorship and 
the methods of instruction once dear. “ Let us 
take an instance. The Lives of the Saints are 
filled with wild, impossible, absurd, puerile, even 
disgusting tales. Many people say, ‘ Away with 
such contemptible literature ! ’ But in fact this 
is most valuable literature, and in constructing 
the history of morals or the progress of society 
these very legends of the saints cannot be over- 
estimated. True, they tell of miracles and events 
which never occurred, but reflect that these 
things, in the opinion of that age, might and 
should have occurred, and would have been beau- 
tiful. They give us a picture of the manners, 
morals, and religious views of an important era, 
and show us the decadence of family life and 
national honor and patriotism ; the exchange of 
a large philanthropy for a religious selfishness 
which even destroyed all the best characteristics 
of religion.” 


i6o 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“ I never have any patience in reading them,” 
said Faith. “I despise this flying to the desert 
Avhen one has work to do at home ; this raving 
like a maniac or standing on a pillar has not half 
the heroism of a daily doing of duty ! Our Letty 
is a better sample of a saint and lives nearer 
to God and more on the pattern laid down in 
the Scripture than any life that the legends can 
show.” 

O Faith ! ” cried Letty, “ hush ! ” 

“You are quite right about Letty,” said father; 
“ but after this digression you will allow me to go 
on with the Mostellaria ” 

“Oh, certainly,” said Faith; “I should like to 
hear it. Your Latin reading is both music and 
poetry, father.” 

By such animated discussions Faith kept up her 
father s interest and absorbed his attention, while 
she and Letty worked on their dresses. Then 
when the day was at its best, she would go out 
with him on a brisk walk to get the supplies 
needed for the house ; or, after moonrise, along 
the beach for stores of driftwood ; or, if the sea 
were unusually calm, in The Goblin for a little 
fishing. 

Finally the dresses were done, and Faith had 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. l6l 

made her a hat and muff to match, and for two 
Sabbaths she and father went to church, and father 
in a good suit and overcoat held up his head and 
felt himself a man once more. 

He planned much what should be done in two 
years — when Hugh was “his own man,” free of 
his promise, able to help them all. They would 
live together in the city and have things like 
other people. 

Faith was silent, but secretly she resolved that 
her young brother should not be handicapped in 
his life struggle by having three to support — one 
of them capable of devastating any home and 
any earnings in constantly recurring drunkenness. 
Faith had no hopes of father s reform. She did 
her best to divert him and keep him from his cups, 
but always with a heavy heartbreaking conscious- 
ness that soon the effort would prove futile. 

“ Talk to him. Faith ; keep him disputing and 
instructing,” said Letty. “You know how to do 
it ; I don’t. I always fall in with his views, or, 
if I differ, I am silent. I cannot argue ; you can, 
and you are brisk and wake him up.” 

Father was still reading his new books to them. 

“I wish, Faith,” he said, “that I could rouse 
in you enthusiasm for classical study. You weigh 


i 62 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


the books too much by their subject matter. 
True, that is often light, trifling ; but how weighty 
are Cowper’s themes of a pet hare, a wet rose, 
and Mrs. Montague’s feather curtains.?” 

“ I hate Cowper, except some of his hymns, 
and John Gilpin.” 

“ There is no study more sharpening and 
strengthening and refining to the mind than the 
pursuit of all the niceties and subtleties of the 
classic tongues. I wish I had De Quincey’s works 
here to read you his opinion,” said father serenely. 

“ Don’t you want to hear my opinion of De 
Quincey.?” cried Faith. He writes very beauti- 
ful English, but he is shallow. He is vain, selfish, 
petty, carping, gossiping, tattling — a weazened 
little silver-tongued scandal-monger ! He is all 
talk, talk, talk! He had great natural abilities, 
and was immensely vain of them, and how did he 
use them .? Put himself by the use of opium in 
such a state that for ten years he could neither 
think, write, nor converse properly. With endow- 
ments that would have made a fortune, by the 
indulgence of a depraved appetite he ceased to 
maintain his family and became with them a bur- 
den on his friends. I can think of no more con- 
temptible, disgusting picture than he draws of 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT, 163 

himself, shut in at home on a winter night with 
his wife at her sewing, while he has at his elbow 
a whole decanter of laudanum to drink, and 
intends to sit up from six in the evening until 
five in the morning swallowing innumerable cups 
of tea, and taking spoonful after spoonful of 
that filthy, horrible-tasting laudanum ! What did 
he mean to do all day ? Why, sleep, and dream 
wild opium dreams ! What a horrible life, that, 
for a reasonable soul that is bound for the judg- 
ment seat, where account must be given to God 
for every word and act and hour ! He raves over 
his love for his dear children and his beloved M. 
His love was a mere selfish emotion to prate about 
while he neglected and disgraced his own. Then 
look at what he calls his reforms ! Can you im- 
agine anything weaker, more contemptible.^ A 
few days he abstains, then drugs himself with what 
would have killed ten men whose lives were worth 
the saving ! Says he is cured when he is keeping 
up his habit all the time. Gives it as an excuse 
for failure that he suffered so much and nearly 
died ! I think he had better have died trying to 
do well than to live as he did. As .for his suffer- 
ings, they were the harvest of his own sowing, 
and he should have borne them in silence. I 


164 the house on the beach. 

just loathe that De Quincey — he was contempt- 
ible ! And look at that other opium eater, Cole- 
ridge. The more splendid his mind, the greater 
shame that he did so little of real use with it. 
His family neglected and abandoned, himself a 
burden on the generosity and hospitality of friends, 
sitting up smoking, wine drinking, opium eating 
until two or three o’clock in the morning, and 
coming downstairs, perhaps late in the afternoon, 
to begin the same performance again, disturbing 
the households where he had been invited. What 
kind of a gentleman was that, that with his friends 
smoked in his hostess’ best parlors and rooms, 
fumigating her furniture when he knew how 
loathsome his habit was to her, and then, after 
unnumbered kindnesses, inviting a man given to 
hard drinking, providing wine for him, and drink- 
ing with him at that, when his host was a teeto- 
taller and publicly committed to the temperance 
cause } Can you imagine a worse sample of men 
than the famous Coleridge and De Quincey .J* 
The greater the gifts God had given them, the 
more abominable they were in their disuse or 
abuse.” 

“ O Faith,” said her father, “ how unsparing 
you are in your condemnation of the sinner ! how 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 165 

little you know of the power of an appetite, of 
the violence of temptation ! Don’t you suppose 
I know how to sympathize with Coleridge and 
De Quincey ? ” 

‘‘ Still they were to blame, and you also are to 
blame, father.” 

‘‘That is quite true. But soon the power of 
appetite makes one careless of blame ; there is 
the trouble.” 

“ And I think lauding such men for the splen- 
dor of their attainments or natural gifts and 
passing in what is called ‘ pitying silence ’ their 
sins — yes, their crimes against themselves — 
has made other people feel that these vices were 
small matters, and that genius atoned for every- 
thing ! I suppose as far as brain, as genius, as 
gifts go, Lucifer or Satan was the first of cre- 
ated intelligences — that did not make him any 
better ! ” 

“It seems, in cool discussion like this, that 
self-restraint and abstinence would be easy ; but 
in the hour and power of temptation the soul 
of man is as the desert wheel, and the tempta- 
tion, like the desert wind, carries it away,” said 
Ralph Kemp. 

“ But when the hour and power of darkness 


1 66 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

came to Christ, prayer and the Word of God were 
his weapons for victory.” 

“Ah, girl,” said Ralph Kemp, “some of us do 
not desire a victory ; we prefer to yield from the 
first. The terrible part of it is to begin an en- 
slavement that is so complete.” 

“ I could show these admirers and worshipers 
of debauched and ungodly genius far nobler spec- 
tacles,” cried Faith with enthusiasm. “There 
was a small, humble room in Corinth, where 
Paul, a master mind of all ages, lived with Priscilla 
and Aquila, and wrought at tentmaking for bread, 
and yet preached the gospel of the Son of God. 
There have been slaves rowing on galley benches, 
and captives in dungeons, working even there 
to save souls and serve God in their day and 
generation. O father, it will be worth so much 
to hear the ‘ Well done ! ’ at last, and to be of 
those who came out of great tribulation and the 
fires of conquered temptation ! ” 

But father could not hear the voice of the 
charmer charming never so wisely, and Faith saw 
the symptoms of speedy relapse. 

One day Kiah Kibble was working, inside of 
the boathouse now, where there was a fire in the 
curious old iron stove, and the high tide lapped 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 167 

up and down among the piles on which the house 
stood. The door opened, and in came Faith, her 
cheeks crimson from the frosty air, a troubled, 
hesitant look in her great gray eyes. 

“ What is it. Miss Faith .? ” asked Kiah. » Come 
sit by the stove and let us talk matters over. 
I see trouble in your fade. Is it the father.?” 

“Yes,” said Faith; “he is going back to drink- 
ing again — I see ail the signs. Letty and I have 
tried so hard to keep him entertained, but now 
he is moody and cross and will not speak or eat 
or read. He knows well enough where this will 
lead him ; and he prefers to get back to his drink, 
and he will not try by food or exercise or books 
to turn aside from temptation. He won’t ask 
God to help him, because he does n’t want to be 
helped. And now, Mr. Kibble, you see how it is : 
that Christmas box brought us a good many nice 
things, books and pictures, and the overcoat and 
whole suit for father, and I know how it will be, 
and I just can’t stand it. He will first pay out 
all his new good clothes for drink, and come back 
to us in dirt and tatters. After that, one by one, 
he will carry off the things that were sent to us. 
We take So much comfort in them ! and, Mr. 
Kibble, I just cannot have father carry off those 


i68 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


pictures and books, and sell them in that grog- 
shop ; and if Mr. Julian should come here next 
summer, or his sister, and the things were gone, 
I should die of shame ! Oh, I cannot stand it ! 
I have nerve for a good deal, but not for that ! 
Tell me what I can do.” 

“You shouldn’t stand it, child; it is asking too 
much of human nature to put up with the like of 
that,” said Kiah. “You must take hold of the 
law — there is some law in behalf of drunkards’ 
families. You ’ll go over to those two saloons in 
the town, and you ’ll warn them not to sell to 
your father, because he is an habitual drunkard. 
Tell them that if they let him have liquor, or take 
from him clothing or other goods as pay for 
liquor, they shall be proceeded against.” 

Here was a terrible remedy. To go to those 
dens of drink, stand there as the daughter of 
a dishonored father, and bring such a charge 
against that father — how could she } She looked 
at Kiah with large, entreating, terrified eyes. 
There were times when this Faith looked pite- 
ously like a little child, in spite of her stately 
height and fine physique. 

Kiah answered her look. 

“ No, miss, I can’t do it for you ; I would if 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 169 

I could. They ’d pay no heed to me, as he has 
a grown-up family that could speak if they wanted 
him stopped. But I ’ll go with you and let ’em 
see you have an honest friend to stand by your 
rights.” 

We ’ll go now,” said Faith, rising quietly. 
“ I told Letty I had a few errands to do. I will 
go and be back before she knows it. Come, Kiah ! 
It is very good of you to be willing to go.” 

So over to the town walked the bent and gray 
but sturdy old boatbuilder, and the girl, straight 
and strong and tall, her eyes fixed before her, 
her lips firmly set, for a conflict with the demon 
which destroyed her home. 

As from the wood ‘‘a ramping lion rushed sud- 
denly” toward Una, *‘who made a sunshine in 
shady place,” and as at once the ravenous beast 
crouched subdued at the presence of purity, so 
there fell in the abode of evil, where the fumes 
of smoke and strong drink and poisonous breaths 
loaded the air, a sudden hush and suspense as 
Faith with head erect and firm of mien did her 
errand : I warn you to sell no more drink to my 
father, Ralph Kemp, who is an habitual drunkard. 
Drink puts in peril his life and ours. I warn you 
not to take from him, as pay for liquor, clothing 


170 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

or household goods. If you do either of these 
things against which I warn you, you shall be 
proceeded against.” 

“ Go away with you ! This is no place for 
girls,” said the bartender. 

“Is it a place for a girl’s father.?” asked Faith, 
sweeping a glance around. 

“ Kemp gets his liquor and gives his pay at 
his own risk,” said the man. 

“It will be at your risk, if you give him any 
more,” replied Faith. 

“Look ye. Hill,” said Kiah, stepping up, “my 
name ’s Kibble, and I have brains in my head and 
money in the bank ; and I ’ll retain a lawyer for 
her and pay all the expenses of all the suits she 
brings against you.” 

“I hear you both. That’s enough,” said the 
liquor seller. 

And did that set a wall of defense around 
father.? Oh, what can defend the soul that is 
weak within .? A few days after, he was gone, and 
then, in the silence of the growing night the girls 
heard him coming up the beach, bawling forth 
snatches of Cicero and Demosthenes, and then — 
sudden silence. What had befallen him .? They 
lit the lantern. The night was cold but still. 


SEARCHING IN THE NIGHT. 171 

They went out, searching for him here and there. 
Had he fallen on a rock } Had he slipped and 
gone into the sea.? Or, overcome by stupor, was 
he lying on the dune among the long grasses, 
slowly freezing to death .? Let him lie ! Let 
him go ! The world is better to be rid of such as 
he ! But — he was their father ; a man made in 
the image of God ; a human soul in dire peril ; 
here was a mother’s son ; the lover of a good 
woman’s youth. Up and down they searched 
in the deepening night, and found him at last, 
cowering under a rock and quivering for fear of 
demons, and so took him home. 


CHAPTER XL 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. 

“Now to the rivulets fresh from the mountains 
Point the rods of the fortune tellers. 

Youth perpetual dwells in fountains, 

Not in dens or caves or cellars.” 

HE most stringent temperance legislation 



can result in nothing more than to make it 
difficult for men to obtain strong drink. It can- 
not be made impossible. It is always true that 
where there is an evil appetite evil ways for its 
gratification can be found. The chief benefit of 
temperance legislation and prohibitory law is that 
temptation is by it prevented from being thrust 
upon people ; the man who is making honest 
efforts at reform is helped up by the law ; he 
does not find at every corner something to pull 
him down ; the safety of youth is also in a large 
measure conserved. But where there are those 
who are joined to their idols, and who draw sin as 
with cart ropes, as soon as one evil path is hedged 
up they will open another. 


172 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE, 


173 


Thus it was with Ralph Kemp. Faith’s warn- 
ing to the liquor seller Hill had not been effect- 
ive, for Hill or her father or both had found a 
means of evasion. Faith was a girl of vigorous 
spirit, and when she had undertaken anything she 
persisted ; accompanied by Kiah Kibble she went 
to the two other places in the little town where 
liquor was sold^, and warned them also. Now 
those three places paid high license, and to pro- 
tect them under that nefarious license, the drug- 
gist was not allowed to sell liquor, except as called 
for by a prescription. One day Faith was at the 
town and went into the only drug store to buy 
some fine white wax for her work. As she stood 
by the counter a man from the country was 
handed two bottles, each holding a quart of whiskey. 

** I think,” said Faith, looking the clerk in the 
eye, ‘Hhat that is a very large prescription^ 

The clerk had the grace to blush. 

The sight of that ''prescription” made Faith 
uneasy. Was this the place where father got his 
liquor.? She went across the street to try to 
match some floss for Letty’s work, and while she 

sat in the store she saw her father enter the drug 

< 

store. She waited a little, and returned there. 
Her father did not look around as she entered; 


174 HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

the clerk did not know of their relationship, and 
the proprietor came from behind the screen — 
which hides a deal of suspicious doings in some 
drug stores — and was handing her father a pint 
bottle of brandy. Faith stepped forward and laid 
her strong white hand on the evil thing just as her 
father was putting it in his pocket. 

“You cannot have this, father.”^ 

Then to the amazed clerk : “This is my father. 
I have warned the saloons not Jo give him liquor. 
I did not know that I had to give a warning here 
also ! What he buys is not for medicine, but 
for poison. A prescription ! Who wrote the pre- 
scription Did you f Take back the stuff. He 
cannot have it.” 

Father stood silent. He was intensely angry 
and deeply humiliated, but he was sober, and 
when sober he never forgot respect toward his 
daughters. 

The druggist received back the bottle, then 
said sharply, “ He owes us for ten pints, at fifty 
cents a pint — five dollars. Will you settle the 
bill, as you assert control over him } ” 

“No, I will not,” said Faith roundly. “I do 
not call liquor bills just debts, any more than I 
call gambling debts debts of honor. Not one of 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. I 75 

the dimes my sister and I earn by hard work shall 
go for this poison which is destroying as good a 
father and as accomplished a gentleman as ever 
lived! I shall go and ask Judge Blakely if this 
is an honest debt ; if it is credible that you 
gave ten pints of whiskey to one man, as a pre- 
scriptio7t ! Your druggist’s license is in some 
danger to-day!” 

There was nothing childlike in Faith now : this 
was a woman, wounded and insulted, rousing in 
defense of her home and her kin. The drug- 
gist trembled before the wrath that blazed in the 
big gray eyes. Here was not a person to intim- 
idate, but to placate. The man began to hesi- 
tate : “ I did n’t understand it, you see. Of course 
it is all a mistake, and you may make sure, miss, 
that I ’ll never sell him another drop. We ’ll let 
it go at that.” 

Faith went out with her father. She felt that 
it was her duty to the community to complain of 
the druggist, but then it would bring her unhappy 
home into just that much more notoriety, and 
now that the immediate excitement was over she 
felt abashed, and as if she wanted not vengeance 
but a hiding place. 

“ Is this,” said her father with a voice shaking 


176 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

with rage, ‘‘ a proper line of conduct for a young 
lady ? What will people think of you when you 
usurp authority over your father and threaten 
druggists and make yourself so conspicuous ? ” 

“ They will think that I am my father’s daugh- 
ter, and am doing the best I can,” said Faith 
bitterly. 

“You are a rash and undutiful girl, and I have 
a mind never to go home where you are any 
more ! ” cried Kemp. 

“ Where will you go, then } ” asked Faith, still 
angry. 

“Into the sea — if I want to,” shouted her 
father. 

“ Then you will not see Hugh when he comes 
home. And what about Letty } Letty has not 
done anything. Come — suppose you wait for me 
at the first milestone, and I will go and see if 
there are any papers for you at the school, and 
then we will go home and go to work, both of 
us.” 

“I won’t go with you,” said Kemp sullenly, 
“ nor forgive you.” 

“Yes, you must, father. See now; if you can- 
not like me for myself, you will put up with me 
for Letty’s sake, and for our dear mother’s sake. 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. 177 

Besides, you do like me sometimes, and you like 
to read Latin to me. Let us make friends and go 
home, and let us keep this secret and not bother 
Letty. Suppose we find some arbutus for her as 
we go over the hill. It is early in April, but the 
spring is early this year.” 

Finally they patched up a peace and went home 
together. 

There remained yet in the village a source 
of liquor supply, of which Faith knew nothing, 
neither did Kiah Kibble. It was a low little den 
in the outskirts, kept by a negro, and frequented 
by the lowest class of negroes and whites who 
could not buy drink elsewhere. Hitherto father 
had not fallen low enough to go there ; the former 
gentleman and scholar had yet enough native re- 
finement to shrink from a resort so foul. But 
when liquor was to be had nowhere else, the over- 
mastering passion drove him even to that fiendish 
place. 

There would be some weeks of quiet and peace, 
and then an outbreak. Faith grew more moody, 
and longed more intensely for summer, that she 
might have the comfort that nature yields to 
hearts that love her well. Letty looked at Faith 
pitifully, and up to the limit of her small strength 


178 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

wandered with her on the beach and on the dunes, 
making out-of-door time pay by getting flowers, 
leaves, mosses, seaweeds, shells to afford designs 
for her work. When work was slack Faith and 
'Letty arranged for themselves a new industry, 
collecting quantities of delicate and beautiful sea- 
weeds, mounting them on cards, and sending them 
to the city for sale. They also painted little sea 
scenes on the inner surface of great clam shells, 
and sent them for sale with the weeds. In all 
these ways they earned money enough to keep 
the wolf from devouring them altogether. 

Sometimes Faith’s spirits would rise in the 
very reaction of youth and health, especially after 
she had had an excursion on the hills or over to 
the woods ; then she would jest and make Letty 
and father — who had forgotten his grievances — 
laugh. 

“ Here now,” said Faith, standing at the table, 
her sleeves rolled up from her round white arms, 
a basin of seaweed before her, **all these cards 
are my little ships, to bring our fortune home — 
not very strong little ships, but they have to 
carry me a pair of shoes and a sun umbrella. 
There, Letfy, how does that spray look ? Fine, I 
think. As the French say, ‘ I am not an eagle,’ 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. 1 79 

but I am a good hand at seaweeds. How many 
did you say you had put to press, Letty ? twenty- 
six ? There, you wolf at the door, won’t that 
scare you away ? Letty, I ’m going to commit 
the extravagance of getting me a hat with daisies 
on it. What do you think of that, my dog ? And 
what do you think of that, my cat ? ” 

‘‘ By all means get it — and don’t think so often 
about the wolf.” 

“ The wolf,” said Faith, “ is with us a domesti- 
cated animal. Ever since I was acquainted with 
any zoology, the wolf shared our hearth as freely 
as a kitten. I have been long hoping that he 
would get tired of having his head and shoulders 
in our door, and would go away. I have a scien- 
tific interest in seeing the tail end instead of the 
head end. As he won’t go, nor even turn around, 
I might as well get what fun I can out of him, 
Letty, by commenting on the size and shape of 
his jaws.” 

Week by week went on, and now once more 
the air was mild with the breath of summer and 
the skies were vivid with her smile. Faith sat in 
her rock-bound bower and worked, and marked 
the sails drift by, like white clouds on the horizon 
line, and Letty sat by the open window, and the 


l8o THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

door too was open, and sometimes the bees and 
butterflies drifted in. 

Of what was Faith thinking as she sat on her 
rocks ? She was in the age of hope ; life was 
strong within her ; perhaps she had pleasant 
dreams about days to come. But Letty built her 
nest among the stars. Earth had little to offer 
her ; life did not leap vigorously in her veins, but, 
cramped and burdened, tarried on its way as in old 
age. Faith’s visions were full of unrest and of 
anxious questionings and doubts, while Letty lived 
in a deep interior calm. Even when father’s va- 
garies most grieved her she had where to lay her 
burden down. 

Faith was looking for some good in this world 
as it is. 

Kiah Kibble was looking for the dawn of a new 
era here below, but Letty was looking for the days 
of heaven, and through her heart sang the prom- 
ises : “The people shall dwell in Zion at Jeru- 
salem : thou shalt weep no more : he will be very 
gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry ; when 
he shall hear it, he will answer thee.” “Ye shall 
have a song as in the night when a holy solemnity 
is kept ; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth 
with a pipe to come into the mountain of the 
Lord, to the mighty One of Israel.” 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. i8l 

Sometimes the face of Faith was joyful in what 
of good the Lord had given her ; sometimes it 
was heavily sad with the sorrows that had come 
upon her. But the face of Letty was always at 
peace ; she dwelt near Him who is given to be a 
“hiding place from the wind, and a covert from 
the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, 
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land.” It is often thus with the early called, with 
those who are set to stay on earth but a short 
time, and have little in them of the earthly. 

Now that it was fair weather, they went to the 
boathouse again, and when there Kiah Kibble 
and Faith took counsel that Kiah should try to 
find out where father got liquor. “ If we can 
only keep the stuff from him,” sighed Faith. 

But one day she came down to the boathouse 
alone, running swiftly in her excitement, panting, 
her cheeks aflame. 

“ Kiah, I can’t stand it I I won’t stand it ! 
You must help me! Father came back very — 
bad last night. We heard him coming and went 
upstairs, and he went to his room and then Letty 
locked him in. This morning I found that he 
had been hunting among our little things to find 
something to carry off to pay for drink, but he 


i 82 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


did not seem to have taken anything. When he 
was asleep I went into his room and found that 
he had taken away his clothes — the new ones, 
very good yet, for he had been so careful of them 
— and his good overcoat — Hugh’s present. Mr. 
Kibble, do you understand ? His clothes are all 
gone now, but a very shabby, mended, frayed old 
suit. He has not a decent thing left — and — 
and soon people will be coming to the beach, and 
he is not fit to be seen. I can’t stand it! I 
won’t I I want those clothes back ! ” 

Kiah had laid down his chisel, shaken himself 
free of sawdust and shavings, and was pulling on 
his coat. 

“ Miss Faith, I ’ll go to the town, and I won’t 
come back without those clothes. I ’ll sift this 
out as sure as my name is Kiah Kibble ! ” 
Darkness had gathered about the house on the 
beach and father was in the heavy sleep that 
succeeded his outbreaks, when the sisters heard 
a step on the shingle. Faith looked out of the 
window and asked : — 

“Is that you, Mr. Kibble } ” 

“Yes; and I’ve brought the things. It will 
do no hurt to let them hang here over these 
bushes and air to-night. I got them out of a 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. ^ 1 83 

baddish place ! No need to come down, Miss 
Faith, I am not coming in. All safe } ” 

**Yes,” said Faith; “and, oh, thank you so 
much ! Where did you get them ? Of course 
not at the druggist’s. At Hill’s } ” 

“ No. I went there first and opened the mat- 
ter, and Hill bluffed me and played sulky; but I 
said to him, ‘ See here. Hill ; you may be mad 
because we kept you out of a customer, but 
you ’d be a deal madder to know some fellbw was 
selling liquor here right and left without paying 
any license and you paying a high one. Do you 
wink at that game ? ’ ‘ No, I don’t,’ says he. 

‘ Show me the man ! ’ ‘ Help me to find him,’ 

says I ; Hor he ’s here in town, selling on the sly, 
and he has a suit of clothes and an overcoat that 
I ’m after.’ So Hill and the sheriff and I went 
to work, an4 by seven we ran our fox into his 
den ; and I got out the clothes and the den is 
shut and the liquor confiscated, and the negro in 
jail for selling without a license. So good-night. 
Miss Faith. I ’d like to shut up one of those 
shops every day.” 

After a very .wild outbreak came always the 
period of rebound ; the pendulum swung back 
toward abstinence in proportion as'it had oscillated 


184 the house on the beach. 

toward intemperance. As in the pendulum the 
acceleration of motion is proportional to the sine 
of the displacement, so in the father’s mental 
oscillation, just in proportion to the depth of his 
drunkenness was the loftiness of his temperance 
views when he returned to himself. His high 
state of virtue on the present occasion was in- 
creased by having a good suit of clothes and a 
well-laundered shirt to get into. It never oc- 
curred to him to ask how the clothes which he 
had sold for drink came to be hanging over the 
footboard of his bed when he became sober. 

Having delivered himself to meditation for a 
day, he came out as a professor of moral virtues 
and as the careful paternal head of the family. 
Shaven, neat, and well-dressed, though with a 
hand somewhat trembling, he seated himself at 
the breakfast table. 

“ I have taken unusual pains with my dress, 
my daughters, for your sakes. The beauty of 
the weather reminds us that summer is here, and 
with summer will come summer guests. I do not 
wish you to be uneasy, my children ; I know what 
is due to you. Faith, you can be as cheerful as 
you please. Rely upon me to do nothing to mar 
your prospects.” 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. I 85 

Faith flamed crimson. Her prospects 1 What 
prospects had she ? Oh, how could he speak so ! 
Why could she not be let alone This was too 
detestable ! If by chance any one spoke to her 
on the beach, must it be taken for granted that 
she had prospects ? She sprang up, ran away to 
her room, and there cried with vexation, disgust, 
and mortification. 

Faith is uneven in her temperament of late,” 
said father tranquilly to Letty. It is said to be 
a sign of love.” 

‘‘Please, father, do not speak so. Faith and I 
cannot think of such things,” remonstrated poor 
Letty. 

“And why not V demanded father. 

“Because I am prohibited by my misfortunes, 
and Faith by your fault ! ” said Letty, exasper- 
ated in behalf of her sister. And that was the 
severest thing Letty ever said to her father. 

“ Sed redeo ad formulain,'' said father magisteri- 
ally. “ I shall do nothing to mar Faith’s prospects. 
She shall be made happy in spite of herself.” 

“Father, promise me you will not interfere — 
you will not take things for granted ; you will not 
— you will not be talking to Mr. Julian, if he 
comes here ! ” 


i86 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“No, Letty; surely not. It is not needful for 
you to instruct me in the proprieties of life. No ; 
I will do nothing ; for Ennius reminds us : * An 
ill-done good, I judge an evil deed.’ Do not be 
alarmed. I surely have your sister’s happiness 
more at heart than you have. Come, Letty, call 
your sister down to help you, and then seat your- 
self by the open window. I will go out and bring 
you a bouquet. Air, light, the wild flowers are 
to us free gifts of God. What more do we wish } 
Our home is lowly, our lot is poor ; but with free 
minds the universe is ours. ‘For what in human 
affairs,’ says Cicero, ‘may seem great to him to 
whom all eternity and all the magnificence of the 
universe is known } ’ In the realm of thought, 
my child, we may reign as kings. Happy is the 
mind fed on the marvels of nature and the glo- 
rious developments of philosophy ; happy the heart 
like yours, my child, at peace with itself ; happy 
the young maid, like your sister, whose beautiful 
face reflects a beautiful mind.” 

After a day or two, the sisters, as usual, fell in 
with father’s changed state, and listened without 
amazement or irritation while he praised self-con- 
trol, self-sacrifice, family love, prudence, charity, 
temperance — all the virtues. He should in that 
state have been a professor of morals. 


IN PRAISE OF TEMPERANCE. 


187 


When Faith grew weary of the house, she 
could now go back to the rocks, with the better 
grace that father was as pleasant as could be 
wished and was making himself agreeable to 
Letty in the house. So to her granite throne 
went Faith and, cheered by the beauty that was 
all around her, smiled and sang. 

Letty and father walked down there to call her 
home to tea. They saw her as they came, her 
shining golden hair lit by the sunset against the 
cold gray rock, her face and figure so full of bloom 
and life and beauty, like an arbutus blossom upon 
the dull stone. And they heard her singing a 
verse that she loved : — 

“And I thought I heard him say, 

As he passed along his way, 

‘ O silly soul, keep near me. 

My sheep should never fear me ; 

I am the Shepherd true.’ ’’ 

It made Letty think of the angels singing in 
heaven. 

And when June was yet in its first flush of 
beauty, one day the merry shouts of a little boy 
echoed up the sands and Richard Parvin thrust 
his bonny countenance into the door of the house 
on the beach. 


i88 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


“ Is that you, Miss Letty ? Where is my mer- 
maid ? Down at the rocks ? There, then, that 
old Kenneth has got ahead of me ! He went to 
the rocks and I came here, to see which should 
be first. Oh, dear ! ” 

“ Do you want to be first } ” said Letty with a 
benevolence that Kenneth might have called ma- 
levolence. “Then run across the edge of the 
dune, just where you see a little path, and it will 
take you to the rocks the shortest way and you 
will be first after all.” 

Away bounded Richard ; but perhaps he did 
not find the right path, for when he reached the 
grotto there sat Faith making lace, and there sat 
Kenneth on a bowlder trying to be agreeable. 

But Richard got much the warmer reception, if 
that was any comfort to him. As for Kenneth — 

“ I ’m afraid you ’d not have spoken to me at 
all. Miss Faith, if you had not hoped for news 
from your brother.” 

“ Oh, yes ; maybe I might,” said Faith care- 
lessly. 


CHAPTER XII. 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL, 


Thou art like the rest of men, 


Thou ’ll go sniffing about the tap till thou does it again ; 

There ’s thy enemy, man, and thou knows and I knows as well, 

That if thee sees him and smells him, thee ’ll follow him down to hell.” 



|F all King Arthur’s knights, Sir Galahad was 


the one to whom self-control was the easiest 
— because he had always exercised it. To him 
the restraint of the passions had become a second 
nature; “I could” was yokefellow to “I should,” 
and upon them “ I would ” waited duteously. But 
while the habit of right-doing so upbuilds charac- 
ter that living nobly becomes easiest, and to do 
evil would be the more difficult, so self-indulgence 
makes every demand of appetite more imperious, 
yielding to evil becomes the habit of the mind, 
and to deny one’s self is a herculean task beyond 
the effort of the weakened will. Of those whom 
continued indulgence in a vice has made moral 
weaklings, unable to dwell for any length of time 
in the strong bracing air of the regions of virtue, 
Ralph Kemp was a notable example. Each has- 


1S9 


1 90 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

tening year made him less able on any terms to 
govern his depraved desire for strong drink. It 
was idle for him to say to his proud young daugh- 
ter that to spare her mortification he would con- 
duct himself with decency while strangers were 
near. He was soon scheming that he might drink 
a little, and no one know it ; that he might drink 
all that he craved and keep out of sight ; he 
argued as if he were capable of leaving off wheTi 
once he had begun, or as if when possessed by his 
demon he could rule its manifestations. 

It is true that there are men of such vigorous 
mental temperament that at any point in a career 
they can say “ I will not,” and abide by their own 
decree. We have known of cases where there 
was that much iron in the blood. Ralph Kemp 
was made of other material ; and being of that 
weaker mold he insisted upon considering him- 
self strong and relying upon himself. That was 
what discouraged his daughters. He never in his 
efforts reached higher than his own level ; he 
never took hold of the strong One for strength. 

Letty took a little courage from the tl^ought 
that perhaps now her father would not be able to 
get drink anywhere. 

“ Don’t you believe it,” said Faith angrily. “The 


LETTY HAS HER HANES FELL. IQ I 

devil doesn’t mean to be outgeneraled by Kiah 
Kibble and a girl. We have frightened the drug- 
gist, warned the licensed saloons, and shut up the 
one that had no license. Do you think we are to 
be left to enjoy the fruits of victory ? There will 
be some other little sneaking den opened where 
least it is expected. Our only hope is that father 
will want to stay sober for a while.” 

“ Well, for poor Hugh’s sake I hope father will 
stay sober while Mr. Julian and his aunt are here, 
for Hugh may question Mr. Julian closely when 
he goes home, and we should hate for him to have 
a shameful story to tell. But as far as you and I 
are concerned, it is no worse for us to see our 
father doing wrong one time than another, is it, 
Faith .? ” 

“ No ; I suppose not,” said Faith. 

“I hope Mr. Julian will not come up here as 
often as he did last summer. Can’t you — stop it, 
Faith ? ” continued Letty. 

‘^Why, girl, I don’t own the beach.” 

“ I ’m afraid you are the one that makes thi^ 
end of the beach more attractive than the other,” 
suggested Letty. 

*‘You don’t want me to scowl and say sharp 
things to our brother’s friend, do you.^^” demanded 
Faith. 


192 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


‘‘O Faith, you know what I mean,” cried poor 
Letty in despair. “ We are not situated as other 
girls are. We must do differently. I ought to 
watch over you ; I am the eldest, you know, but 
you are an awfully hard girl to be a mother to ! ” 

Then Faith sank down on her knees beside the 
chair of her little elder sister, and hugged the 
pathetic creature to her heart ; her strong round 
white arms clasped Letty firmly ; she laid her 
lovely young face on poor Letty’s deformed shoul- 
der, and she protested that Letty was the dearest 
little woman in all the world, and they should 
never be parted, but live together all their days. 

But she did not say that she would sit no more 
on the rocks chatting with Kenneth Julian. Why 
should she say it } Why not let a little gleam of 
brightness, a brief vision of the big brilliant outer 
world into her shadowy and contracted existence ? 
Suppose she kept strictly at the house, immuring 
herself in summer as in winter, what good would 
it do If she kept away from the rocks, Kenneth 
would come up to the house and sit on the thresh- 
old; and it was much pleasanter at the rocks. 
The blue bending skies, the broad shifting opal of 
the sea, the huge bowlders, flung together when 
the echo of the song of the morning stars yet 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 


193 


pealed through heaven, were all so much better 
environment than the shabby little house on the 
beach. 

Letty sighed : Letty sighed often nowadays ; 
she sighed over her father; she sighed over 
Faith ; they were all numbered, those sighs ; their 
sum total was told above, and when the last sigh 
was breathed, then divine rest should enter into 
Letty’s soul and a blissful satisfaction be hers in 
the city of her God. 

Faith, watching her father, detected the signs 
of relapse. “Father,” she said, “you know what 
you promised ; you said on Hugh’s account, so 
that Hugh should have no sad news to hear, you 
would be very careful and not drink any while 
Mr. Julian is at the beach.” 

“I never said a word about Hugh — I said on 
your account.” 

“Whichever account it was, you promised to be 
good. Now you know if you stop working, if you 
begin to go over to the town, there will be trouble. 
Won’t you keep your word, father "i It seems as 
if I should die of shame, if I saw you coming 
home wild and noisy, not knowing what you were 
doing. Do, father, take some pride in yourself. 
Bring those books down to the rocks and read to 
me while I work, and let us talk about them.” 


194 HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

“Kenneth Julian will be there.” 

“ Let him ! He will enjoy your talk just as 
much as I do. I am so proud of you when you 
read and translate your Latin books and comment 
upon them, and trace their influence on English 
literature. Come down there with me, father. I 
would much rather you did. I don’t like to sit 
there alone — as if — as if I were waiting for peo- 
ple, when I am not, but have always been there 
the six years that we have lived here ; and I hate 
to stay cooped up in the house. Now, father, you 
can make beautiful nets and hammocks. I ’ll 
order the twine, and you come there and make a 
net while I work lace, and we ’ll have a book or 
two and we can read and discuss a little, and at 
noon I will run up to the house for Letty and the 
dinner, and it will be a real family party. Then 
if any one else wants to come and sit there and 
talk, let him — we won’t mind. Do try it. I 
really would like it so much better that way.” 

Father allowed himself to be persuaded. He 
sat by Faith, netted several times across a ham- 
mock, and discussed to Kenneth the De Senectute. 

But appetite was dragging at father as if it had 
cast mighty lines about him, and was pulling him 
toward the foul den where he could obtain its in- 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 1 95 

dulgence. The tenderness of Letty, the defer- 
ence of Faith, the attention paid by Kenneth, the 
reassertion of what little manhood he had left 
were all feeble compared with the demands of a 
depraved appetite. To what a hideous bondage 
do the sons of Ephraim submit their souls ! 

If you go to the town, you will be lost,” said 
Faith. “When you get where you can see or 
taste liquor, all is ended with you. Stay here, 
father. If I were you, I ’d rather cut off my feet 
than have them carry me to ruin and shame ! ” 

Oh, vain remonstrances and vainer cares ! 

Letty was in her usual seat by the window. 
She was embroidering a table cover. Mrs. Parvin 
had been to see her and had brought her several 
well-paid orders from city friends. Mrs. Parvin 
had been very, very kind, but Letty felt that Mrs. 
Parvin had questioned her rather closely about 
Faith, and that she had cast anxious glances, as 
became a wise aunt, toward the rocks where might 
be seen the top of Kenneth’s cork helmet. 

Letty’s thoughts were called from Faith by 
other cares. As she sat and wrought crimson 
poppies and yellow heads of wheat, Kiah Kibble’s 
boy came running up. 

“Miss Letty! Mr. Kibble ain’t down by the 


196 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

boathouse to-day. He’s gone over to the yard 
for lumber.” 

** Well, what of that } ” 

^‘Your — father’s down there, miss.” 

“ Is anything the matter } ” asked Letty, stick- 
ing her needle in the stem of a poppy and rising 
prescient of evil. 

He ’s awful — full — an’ there ’s two boys 
there gaming at him, an’ I ’m afraid he ’ll rouse 
mad and do something. An’ ’sides, Kiah ’s ’fraid 
to have him there when he ’s drunk, lest he ’ll get 
things set afire. ’T ain’t safe. Miss Letty, long o’ 
shavin’s an’ all.” 

“ Run back quickly. I ’ll come right along and 
get him home.” 

And then poor Letty looked toward the rocks. 
The day was gray, and near the sea, below the 
grotto, Letty saw seated on the shelving sand her 
beautiful sister working at her lace, and not far 
from her Kenneth Julian half reclining on a swath 
of seaweed ; and the two were laughing and chat- 
ting merrily together. A mother love for both 
helpless parent and beautiful sister tugged at 
Letty’s heart. She must go to her father, and 
yet she did not want to go off and leave Faith 
alone. 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 1 97 

She stood in the doorway and called her: 
“ Faith ! Faith ! ’’ 

Faith left her work on the beach and came 
running to the house. The pocket of her white 
apron was full of French bonbons. It generally 
was when Kenneth was around ; he seemed to 
consider them her proper diet. As she ran up, 
Faith took out a handful of the candies and held 
them toward her sister. 

Letty took them absently and laid them on the 
window ledge. 

“ Faith, it 's been of no use. Father ’s — 
broken out again. Jerry came for me. He is at 
the boathouse — and some boys are plaguing him, 
and Kiah is away. I must go for him.” 

“ Shall I go with you } ” 

“ No ; you know he lets me lead him, but he 
always acts worse if you are around. Besides, if 
you come, Mr. Julian will offer to come too, and 
I wouldn’t have him see him for anything.” 

^‘No.” 

“ But — I don’t want to go and leave you down 
there,” Letty said; '‘it doesn’t look just right. 
Won’t you stay up here at the house 

“ Then he ’ll come up here ! ” 

Not if you tell him not to. Faith, people 


198 the house on the beach 

will talk if you let him be here so much. Go 
and get your work and tell him you will be busy 
the rest of the day.” 

“ Why should I } There ’s no harm in it, and 
no pleasure in staying here in this hot little 
house ! I sha’n’t enjoy sitting here and listening 
to father playing the madman in his room. Why 
are you so absurd, Letty ? I dl change our seat 
round to behind the rocks, and then he ’ll be sure 
not to see father when he comes in. I might as 
well try to distract my mind from father’s horrid 
ways by talking of Hugh and of pleasant things.” 

‘‘But, Faith, we cannot be like other girls. We 
are poor and he is rich. Our mother would have 
said we had better keep by ourselves. We are 
a drunkard’s children, and we cannot afford to 
have people talk about us. We have no one 
to defend us.” 

“We don’t need defending,” said Faith. “You 
are too absurd about me, Letty. Go and get 
father, if you must. The beach is mine and I 
mean to sit there.” 

Letty said no more. She put on her hat and 
went trudging along the dune, the nearest way 
toward the boathouse. She could not persuade 
Faith ; she would go and see what was to be done 
with father. 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 


199 


Faith, something resentful of Letty’s efforts 
at ruling her actions, and very indignant toward 
her father, stood leaning against the doorway, 
her hands lightly clasped before her, her eyes on 
Letty’s vanishing figure. Poor dear little Letty ! 
Tears welled into Faith’s eyes as she watched 
her. How heroically Letty bore her burdens ! 
How she tried to care for both of them ! Even 
if she had whims, why not indulge them ? It was 
a pity to make the weight on that honest little 
heart heavier than it need be. Why not, to sat- 
isfy Letty, give up the last and only pleasant 
thing that was left to her ? Perhaps in her way 
she was just as selfish and self-indulgent as 
father. Was she like her father.? She hoped 
not. Impulsively she ran to the glass hanging 
on the wall and looked earnestly at her reflec- 
tion. Were there lines there like father.? Had 
she his expression .? However, down on the beach 
lay her work, and there was Kenneth. Before 
long two figures might appear on the crest of the 
dune — one dogged or reluctant, the other pa- 
tient, persistent; oh, poor little Letty! 

Faith ran into her father’s room and removed 
the basin and pitcher, the chair — all that they 
usually took away when father was locked up; 


200 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


she closed the heavy outside shutter of the win- 
dow, and made all ready for the prisoner. Then, 
back toward the beach again. But now the charm 
of the beach had departed. To her there seemed 
now no beauty in the gray, hazy sky, the ships 
slowly tacking to catch the fugitive breeze; the 
tawny sands, the whispering grasses, the lapping 
wavelets had lost their beguilement. Kenneth 
Julian could say nothing that would entertain 
her ; she wished he would go home ! Lace work 
was an enormous drudgery, bonbons were detest- 
able, that volume of Jean Ingelow from which 
Kenneth had been reading Divided ” — what a 
weariness it was ! 

She went back and took up her work, saying 
nothing. 

Has your sister gone to town } ” said Ken- 
neth, to say something. 

“She never goes there. She cannot walk so 
far. She has gone to the boathouse.” 

“ Did she want you to go with her V 

“ If she had, I should have gone.” 

“What is the matter. Miss Faith } ” said Julian 
gently. “Just now we seemed to be getting on 
very well and enjoying ourselves, and now what 
troubles you ? ” 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 


201 


** Everything is wrong ! ” cried Faith. “ No- 
thing is ever right for me. My life got crooked 
long ago, and it will keep crooked to the end of 
it. No, don’t pick up the book ; don’t read any 
more. I don’t want to be read to ; I am wretched. 
I want to be alone. I wish you would go home 
to the hotel, Mr. Julian. You belong where there 
are happy and reasonable people.” 

“If you are in trouble,” said Kenneth Julian, 
“ why not let me help you } I am sure I am 
willing. That is what friends are for, is n’t it ? 
Your brother is not here; let me do something 
for you.” 

“You can’t; there is nothing to be done. 
Letty and I have to help ourselves. All you 
can do is ” — and she swept an anxious look 
toward the dune — “to go.” She was now past 
asking him to move around the point of rocks 
and continue reading and conversation, as she 
had suggested to Letty. 

Kenneth rose from the sand, not offended, 
but calmly taking his dismissal as a matter of 
course. 

“ Good-morning, Miss Faith.” 

After he had gone a few rods he turned. 
Faith’s face was bowed upon her knees ; she was 


202 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


crying. At first he wanted to go back and com- 
fort her, then he realized that she preferred to be 
left alone, and so he presently disappeared around 
a wide curve in the beach. 

It seemed to Kenneth as he pursued his way 
that it was very unjust that he, a strong young 
man, should be care-free and in the possession of 
all the good things of this life, and that that fair 
young girl should be left to bear so heavy a 
burden. Could nothing be done for Faith } He 
had privately asked Kiah Kibble if Letty and 
Faith were in any personal danger from their 
father, and Kiah had said that he thought not ; 
they seemed to know how to manage him, and he 
was not abusive ; Letty always locked him up in 
time. But then, who could trust the vagaries of 
a drunken man } Sometimes it had crossed Ken- 
neth’s mind that this was quite the most charm- 
ing girl he had ever seen, and that it would be a 
happy lot to have her share his life and build up 
with him the gracious pattern of a home that 
should be a type of heaven. But could or would 
Faith leave Letty, or would both the sisters leave 
their father.? Could a home ever be built includ- 
ing father — that impossible element in home- 
making, a drunkard .? That would be unjust to 


LETTY HAS HER HANDS FULL. 


203 


Patty and Uncle Doctor ; and how could Kenneth 
say As for me and my house, we will serve the 
Lord,” with father to account for ? Besides, had 
he any reason to suppose that Faith would care 
for him, even if all were well? No; Faith had 
never given him any reason to think that ; not 
half as much reason as some other girls had for 
whom he did not care at all. This question had 
too many difficulties ; he could not settle it. He 
had reached the hotel. There his aunt met him. 

“ Oh, you are back ? I ’m glad of it. We 
want you to make up a party. You spend a deal 
of time up the beach, Kenneth ; I would not, if 
I were you. It is not well — believe me.” 

Kenneth more than suspected that Letty shared 
that opinion. 

Faith, meantime, had ceased weeping and was 
working with vigor, and Letty appeared along the 
dune urging her father homeward. It gave Letty 
some comfort to see Faith sitting there alone. 
Faith had taken her advice after all ! How good 
of Faith ! Faith heard from behind her father’s 
voice, complaining, remonstrating, protesting. 
She did not look around. Letty was the only 
one who could govern her father at that stage. 
Step by step she led him, and at last into his 


room. 


204 HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

**Now lie down, dear, and rest.” 

“I tell you, I ’m thirsty. I am burning up.” 

Lie down, dear ; I ’ll get you some water.” 

“ I say I won’t have it ! ” 

Letty was gently pressing him toward his 
pillow. 

“Just rest there one minute, dear, till we think 
of it ; ” and then with a quick dart she was outside 
the door and had drawn the bolts. As for water. 
Faith had provided a two-quart tin pail of it near 
the bed ; but father would never touch it at this 
stage. 

Letty drew a long breath. She wanted love, 
sympathy, to be near some one who understood 
it all and knew how hard it was. She went 
slowly down to Faith, sat by her, and slipped her 
hand into hers ; Faith held it fast. They were 
silent for a while, then Faith said : — 

“ See here, I ’m going to have my way now. 
We can’t help father, and we are going to stay in 
my grotto the rest of the day.” 

She led the tired Letty there with gentle force, 
spread, as she had for Richard, a couch of dry 
weeds, then went up to the house for more work 
materials and a basket of luncheon and a pillow. 
She made Letty rest while she prepared their 


LETTY I/AS HER HANDS FULL. 205 

dinner, and then while they ate together she reso- 
lutely led conversation away from father and other 
unsafe and distressful channels. After that the 
two returned to their work as they sat there in 
the sheltered nook, and the wheat and poppies 
grew under Letty’s fingers and Faith’s lace collar 
advanced toward completion, as the hours of the 
afternoon wore on. 

'‘What a dear, good girl you are to me, my 
Faith ! ” said Letty. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 

Ne faren as he that is drunk as a mouse. 

A drunken man wot well he hath a house, 
But he ne wot which is the right way thider, 
And to a drunken man the way is slider.” 


HE house on the beach belonged to Kiah 



Kibble, and he oiten told the sisters that 

I 

it was not needful for them to pay him any rent. 

“ Why should I care to accumulate money ? ” 
said Kiah ; “ I have enough for what little I want 
in my old age. My children are comfortably off. 
If I left money to my grandchildren, it might just 
make fools of them. I can’t carry money out of 
the world with me, and it would be looked upon 
in the next world as very poor trash if I could. 
If the New Age dawns before I die, then I shall 
not want money, for then all shall have enough 
and none too much, and no one shall lack and 
none shall defraud his brother. I tell you. Miss 
Letty, that one of the most terrible diseases of 
old age is avarice, and the way to escape it is by 


/iriA^ KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 


207 

constant giving, just as people used to escape 
apoplexy by constant blood-letting.” 

“That is hard on us, Mr. Kibble,” said Faith, 
“for Letty and I never have anything to give. 
We can’t more than make two ends meet, and 
that by very hard pulling.” 

“Don’t you mind. Miss Faith, how the apostle 
said to the lame man, * Silver and gold have I 
none ; but such as I have give I thee ’ ? Money- 
giving is not the only giving; and to my mind 
you and Miss Letty are daily giving the most 
and best that can be, to your father, for love’s 
sake and the Lord’s sake. I think I heard you 
might both be living an easy life with a rich 
uncle if you ’d have deserted him.” 

“ We could n’t do that, you know : it would not 
be right. But we are not too poor to pay your 
rent, and we mean to pay it. It is only twenty- 
four dollars a year, and at Christmas our brother 
sent us nearly half a year’s rent. The Kemps 
have not gone so low that they must take a char- 
ity of house rent. If you don’t want the money, 
give it away. There is plenty of call for money 
for missions; there are orphans and sick people, 
and the temperance cause needs help. If I were 
rich, I could find ways enough to use all the 
money I have to give.” 


208 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


“ Oh, ay, so you could. I only thought I might 
as well begin by giving you the house rent.” 

“ Well, thanks ; but we won’t take it.” 

‘‘At all events no offense intended. Miss Faith.” 

“ That is all right, Kiah ; you are a good friend 
to us, and we know it.” 

Kiah had heard about father’s fresh outbreak, 
and he had come up to see about it the morning 
after. He always felt uneasy concerning the girls 
when their father was misbehaving. 

“ I ’ll go down to the rocks with you. Faith, 
if you like,” said Letty when Kiah was gone. 
“You look real lost and forlorn, someway, sitting 
here in the house with your work.” 

“ If you mean that offer because you think Mr. 
Julian will be there,” said Faith, “ you need not 
disturb yourself, for he won’t. He has gone back 
to the city. He is in business now and he cannot 
take a whole summer as he did last year. He 
will be up once in a while for a few days or a 
week, and that is all.” 

Letty felt greatly relieved, but also she was 
sorry for Faith ; this cheerful acquaintance had 
been such a pleasure and recreation in the dull- 
ness of her life. And how little the summer 
offered her to enjoy ! 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 


209 


There comes our Richard ! ” cried Faith, 
‘^and I must take him down to the rocks right 
away. I would not have him hear poor father 
going on for anything ; and he may wake up and 
begin any minute ! ” 

Up dashed Richard. “ I ’m so hot and so 
tired ! I hurried so ! I Ve brought some nice 
things for luncheon, and I ’m to stay all day. 
The hotel folks are off on a sail and a clambake, 
but I ’d rather be here with you. Miss Mermaid. 
Ken has gone off, and here ’s a book he told me 
to bring you — ‘A Daughter of Fife.’ He told 
mother she was just like you — the Fife one, I 
mean.” 

You run on to the rocks, Richard,” said Faith, 
and I ’ll bring some more lunch and we ’ll have 
a fine day together.” 

“ Goody ! ” cried Richard. I ’m awful glad 
that Ken ’s gone, so he won’t be bothering round ; 
are n’t you. Miss Mermaid } ” 

'‘Delighted! Travel along and get the grotto 
in order,” said Faith. “ There I ” as she watched 
the sturdy little figure traveling toward the rocks, 
" all is safe ; he heard nothing. Are you coming, 
Letty .? ” 

" No, dear. I should not be easy there, and 


210 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


besides, I ’m tired. I went over to the boathouse 
pretty fast yesterday, and this — always tires me.” 

This ” meant father’s outbreak. 

** You poor little darling, you do look worn out. 
Now you shall not work a stitch for two hours. 
Lean back here and let me make you comfort- 
able. And here is half a box of chocolates that 
I had yesterday. You eat away at them now, 
and you read this book that Richard brought up. 
You ’ll enjoy it, and I have this collar to finish 
and I can’t read while the little fellow is with me, 
it disappoints him so.” 

Faith tucked up Letty’s feet on a chair, took 
away her work, gave her book and candy, and 
made ready a neat little luncheon on a side table 
and covered it with a napkin. Then she put her 
own noonday meal in a little basket and prepared 
a small jug of water, ginger, and molasses, a drink 
which Richard greatly affected. 

Good-by,” she said, kissing Letty ; “ mind you 
read your storybook and don’t worry yourself. 
It may cheer you up to find how well the story 
ends after all the bad troubles are over, as good 
stories always do.” 

I know the evil will all end in good — some- 
time,” said Letty. 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 


21 I 


Faith was hardly out of hearing, and Letty, 
putting a caramel in her mouth, was reading the 
second page of her book, when she heard a sound 
in the next room — a shout, a groan, a rattle of 
half-articulate speech; father was awake. Then 
father began his usual Scripture quotations, than 
which nothing seemed to Letty more distressing, 
so much the letter of the Word differed from 
father’s spirit and practice : — 

“ * Who hath woe } who hath sorrow } who 
hath contentions ? who hath babbling ? who hath 
wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? 
They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to 
seek mixed wine. Look not thou on the wine 
when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the 
cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it 
biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. 
They have stricken me, . . . and I was not sick ; 
they have beaten me, and I felt it not : when shall 
I awake ? I will seek it yet again ! ’ Open this 
door and let me out ! I will seek it yet again ! 
That is according to Scripture ! Sin is the cure 
of sin : like cures like — similia similibus curantur. 
If I could have made you two stupid girls good 
Latinists, you would know how to treat a gen- 
tleman and a scholar. Open this door I If the 


212 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


whole sea were brandy, I could drink it up to 
quench this burning thirst ! ” and then followed a 
battery of kicks and blows. 

Small chance for poor Letty now. The choco- 
late caramels lost their sweetness, the book failed 
to charm. She leaned back in her chair and tears 
rushed from under her closed eyelids. Then 
father was suddenly still, and in the pause of his 
exhaustion, sweet and clear as if some angel had 
stood by her side to utter them, sounded these 
words through Letty’ s shaken soul : “His place 
of defence shall be the munitions of rocks : 
bread shall be given him ; his waters shall be sure. 
. . . Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habi- 
tation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down ; 
not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be re- 
moved, neither shall any of the cords thereof be 
broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto 
us a place of broad rivers and streams ; wherein 
shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant 
ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge ; 
the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king ; 
he will save us. . . . And the inhabitant shall not 
say, I am sick : the people that dwell therein shall 
be forgiven their iniquity.” “And the ransomed 
of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION, 213 

songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they 
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and 
sighing shall flee away.” Thus the tossed spirit 
of the girl was tranquilized and she was lulled 
into rest. Still the silence in the next room — 
still the hum of bees, the rustle of long grasses, 
and the gentle lapping of the sea — and so she 
slept. 

It was past noon when she awoke, aroused now 
by her father’s voice, quiet and self-reproachful : 
“ ‘ As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so 
honour is not seemly for a fool.’ I am a -fool. ‘ As 
the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, 
so the curse causeless shall not come.’ Letty ! ” 

‘‘Yes, father.” 

“ I am once more in my right mind. The prodi- 
gal said, ‘ I will arise and go to my father, and 
will say unto him. Father, I have sinned against 
heaven, and before thee.’ You need not fear me 
any more now, Letty.” 

Letty rose, unlocked the door, carried father 
a pail of water, laid out fresh clothes. “Now, 
father, dress yourself while I make strong coffee 
for you, and we will have dinner together. Then 
you can sit by me or read to me while I work, 
and when it is sunset we will walk on the beach.” 


214 HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

** Where is Faith ? ” 

“Down by the rocks.” 

“ Ah ! she can leave me, but you never do, my 
true-hearted Letty ! Sometime Faith will go her 
own ways, but you will not ; you and I will still 
be left together, Letty.” 

“ She will not leave us,” said Letty with a sigh. 
“ I know my Faith. But some day, father, you 
and I, whose fate is bound together, may go 
away and leave Faith — free.” 

Little Richard had gone home, and Faith, 
standing on the beach, was struggling between 
the duty of going back to solace Letty and the 
horror of hearing father’s ravings, when she saw 
the two coming quietly toward her — father clean, 
well-shaven, and neatly dressed, holding Letty by 
the hand as if she were a child. They sat down 
upon the sands. 

“ I am really sorry. Faith,” said Mr. Kemp, 
“ that I forgot myself so seriously. I hope I 
have not done you any particular damage by it.” 

“ Not any more to me, father, than to Letty ; 
you always harm Letty most by your drinking. 
I fly, but she keeps by you.” 

“ Has Mr. Julian been here to-day ? ” 

“ No, father. He has gone back to the city 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 2 1 5 

and is going to stay there — and I ’m glad of it. 
A girl in my circumstances finds friends too dan- 
gerous. I don’t want any.” 

Father understood her. “ Victor Hugo says,” 
he remarked, that in the human animal all other 
animals are present. Man is creation’s crown, 
the climax of animal life, and in his quintessence 
we find the essence of all the lower animals — 
the lion, the cat, the toad, the hog, the fox, the 
hyena, and the donkey are all present in the man, 
and are evoked by different circumstances into 
more or less transient exhibition. Now when 
strong drink has rent away from my inner man 
the veil of conventionality, the educated habit, 
these lower brutes not only peer out, but come 
forth rampant, and overbear all the man-nature. 
It is terrible, and yet the study is curious. I 
often wish that as a psychological study my con- 
scious better self could sit in observing judgment 
of my lower self when so unveiled. I should 
then be able the better to understand myself 
and perhaps apply a remedy.” 

Faith looked at her father intently. The man 
was undergoing a change of some kind. He had 
not usually come out of a drinking bout in just 
this way. 


2I6 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘‘Letty,” she said that night, when her father 
was safely asleep below and she and Letty had 
gone to bed, ‘Hhere is a change coming over 
father. He recovers from his drunkenness much 
more quickly and fully than formerly, and, on the 
other hand, he returns to it much more quickly. 
Until now, drink has made him, in its first 
stage, timid, self-distrustful, dogged, but capable 
of doing what we told him. Then came outbreaks 
of fury with long sleeps or stupors between ; 
then recovery, with humiliation, silence, and 
self-reproach, and perhaps a long period of absti- 
nence. Now all that is changing. He comes 
out of his intoxication soon, self-asserting, un- 
ashamed, and goes back to it speedily. He is on 
the way to being drunk all the time. I tell you, 
Letty, if he becomes unmanageable and danger- 
ous to you, I shall see to it that he is taken care 
of and that you are too.” 

** How } What do you mean ? What could 
you do.?” 

“We might leave father entirely and go to 
Uncle Wharton ; but I think I could not do 
that.” 

“ I could not,” said Letty decidedly ; “ I must 
care for father.” 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 2 1 7 

“ The only way would be, as soon as Hugh is 
twenty-one and free to do as he pleases, to ask 
him to put father in an asylum and pay his 
expenses there. That would be Hugh’s fair part, 
now we have done our share. And you and I 
could live together here or near Hugh and take 
care of ourselves.” 

‘‘ It would be so hard to have to do that with 
father : hard for Hugh, hard for father,” sighed 
Letty. 

“ All there is about it is hard,” said Faith ; 

but we should not wish to relieve Hugh of his 
due share of responsibility. He would be the 
better man for taking up duty, hard or easy. 
And you, Letty, have suffered enough ; you 
shall not be further endangered by father.” 

“The way I manage it,” said Letty quietly, 
“is to make the very best I can of every little 
quiet easy time that comes. Then 1 get up 
courage and strength for the hard times. Now 
father will be good for a while, and I shall keep 
my mind as easy as possible.” 

In fact, father kept the peace for nearly three 
weeks, and Kenneth Julian did not reappear, so 
Letty felt as if she had come indeed to a lull 
in life, a very truce of God. 


2i8 


THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH. 


Then troubles came up again, swift as a sum- 
mer thunderstorm. Since the time when father 
sold his clothes, Faith had kept the clothes locked 
up when the well-known danger signals were 
flying. It was now late in July, and Kenneth 
Julian was coming back for a week. Richard 
had brought the news. 

^*’Fore he went he told me when I heard 
mother say he was coming back to come up here 
and tell you. Miss Mermaid, and if I did it right, 
he 'd bring me one pound of sugared almonds 
and nine packs of firecrackers. You ’ll tell him 
I did it right, won’t you } I ’m going to give 
you half the almonds, after I give mamma some, 
but I don’t guess you care much for the fire- 
crackers — girls don’t ’most always.” 

Thus the new Mercury carried messages be- 
tween the gods. 

The next day Kenneth would arrive, and Faith 
felt pretty sure he would be up the beach speed- 
ily. Perhaps she was glad of it. Faith was 
always the one to get the breakfast. She made 
Letty stay in bed until the meal was nearly ready. 

“ I ought to get it ; I am the eldest, you know,” 
said Letty. 

Being the eldest, with a Faith and Hugh 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 


219 


younger but quite grown up, you have reached 
such venerable age that you must lie in bed in 
the mornings and rest.” 

And this morning when Faith came downstairs 
lo ! the door of father’s room was open, and 
father gone! His bed had not been slept in; 
and from the wall of the front room those three 
engravings, The Angelus, The Return of the May- 
flower, and Cupid in Vacation, had vanished — 
gone with father, gone to buy drink ! And Ken- 
neth was coming, and he always called at the 
little house on the beach to shake hands with 
Letty and to bring her a bunch of flowers, a book 
of patterns, or a box of candy or a basket of fruit. 
He would see the vacant places on the wall ; he 
would know what had happened I 

At first Faith dropped into Letty’s chair and 
cried heartily. Then she wiped her eyes and told 
herself that Letty must have a hot breakfast and 
so must she, and then she would have those pic- 
tures back. 

She made great dispatch about breakfast. 
When Letty came down she gave a moan at 
hearing that father was gone, but, absorbed in 
him, she never noticed the loss of the pictures. 
Faith did not call her attention to it. 


220 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


am going for Kiah Kibble,” said Faith, “and 
we will go to the town and hunt up father and 
bring him back. We must find out where he gets 
his liquor and put a stop to it. It will be fourteen 
months yet before Hugh can take care of father. 
Keep quiet here, Letty, and don’t worry. Kiah 
and I will see to the rest.” 

That Kiah should give up a day’s work and de- 
vote himself to searching for his tenant seemed to 
him a matter of course. In Kiah’s opinion, time 
could not be better employed than in helping 
one’s neighbor. “ I may not be so fortunate,” 
said Kiah, “as to live until that beautiful day 
when all the kingdoms of this world shall become 
the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. I 
have always thought I should be so happy if I 
could be here on the earth until the Lord’s return, 
and be one of those caught up to meet him in the 
air. I fear that can’t be ; but if I am not to live 
until that good time, there is no reason why I 
should not have as far as possible the manners of 
that time, and I make sure that then every man 
will live for the good of his neighbor. Keep up 
courage. Miss Faith. Along these ways that you 
and I now walk in trouble some day angels will 
walk, communing with men able to see such holy 


KIAH KIBBLE, CHAMPION. 


221 


creatures ; and there will be no more tired feet 
carrying heavy hearts, but only the ransomed of 
the Lord going on their errands with joy and 
singing.” 

Faith could not that sad morning take the com- 
fort that Kiah did in these prognostications. She 
was younger, and her present trouble was heavy. 

“ Where are we to go, and what are we to do ? ” 
she asked Kiah. 

“You ’ll go and sit in the railroad station, and I 
will go to the three saloons and find out pretty 
soon if your father has been there, and I ’ll find 
out if there is any person that they suspect of 
illegal liquor-selling. It is a crying injustice. 
Miss Faith, that any liquor-selling should be legal. 
The law ought to be for the betterment of the 
citizens, and not work out their destruction. As I 
take it, God is the only true fountain of law and 
of the authority of men over men, and the holy 
Bible is the pattern law book or statute book ; but 
I tell you, the race of men has got to be mightily 
perverted ! That is one thing that gives me cour- 
age. I think the measure of iniquity must be 
just about even full.” 

“And I think it has been heaped up and run- 
ning over ever and ever so long ! ” cried Faith. ^ 


222 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘‘Now, Kiah, I ’ll go over to the station to wait 
for you ; but mind, I am not going home until 
I find my father and get back my pictures ; and I 
have some money with me, so that as soon as we 
do get father and the pictures we can take a car- 
riage and drive back as far as your boathouse. 
If there is money needed, spend it ; I have some.” 

“Go thy ways, child,” said Kiah kindly. “I 
too have brought money, and this much good I 
can get out of my earnings, that they shall be 
used to cure sorrow and rescue my neighbor.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 

“Hath wine an oblivious power? 

Can it pluck the sting out of the brain? 
The draught might beguile for an hour, 
But it leaves behind it the pain.” 



‘AITH sat for an hour in the station watch- 


ing the coming and going of the passengers 
for the early train. Then Kiah returned. 

have been to those three saloons, and am 
pretty sure that he has not been to them for 
drink.” 

** I would n’t trust a word they say,” replied 
Faith. 

One of them I am sure about, for he owes ten 
dollars there and can get nothing until it is paid. 
As for the other two, I feel pretty certain that he 
has not been there this time. They think that 
there is a successor to the negro’s whiskey den 
somewhere, and they suspect the woman that 
keeps the hotel of selling, and she has no license. 
They are all interested in finding that out.” 

Mrs. Batt, at the Worlo House ! ” cried Faith. 


223 


224 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

A woman ! Why, that can’t be so. A woman 
cannot be so horrid ! besides I have seen her at 
the church, whenever I went there, singing in the 
choir.” 

“ She had better be out of the choir then, for 
the singing is a part of the worship of God, and 
only those should be in the choir who can praise 
God with both heart and voice. The fact is. Miss 
Faith, I believe it is this Mrs. Batt who has sold 
the liquor and has taken your pictures.” 

‘'Wait a minute until I think,” said Faith. 

Next door to the Worlo House, kept by Mrs. 
Batt, was the house of the woman who owned the 
store where Faith occasionally bought fancy work 
materials when her supply from the city ran short. 
This Mrs. Gaines was a shrill-voiced, hard-dealing 
woman, and sometimes when she was away from 
the shop her place was taken by a young girl — 
a thin, sad, overtaxed creature, a niece of Mrs. 
Gaines, who “worked for her keep,” she told 
Faith. Faith had been drawn to sympathize with 
this girl whose lot seemed hard, and on the few 
occasions when she had seen her she had spoken 
cheerily and kindly to her, and the girl. Nan, 
seemed to appreciate it ; such little attentions 
were not frequent in her experience. Faith now 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


225 


began to reason : “ Living next to the Worlo 
House, Nan Gaines will probably know something 
of what goes on there. She likes me, and she 
would tell me what she thought I needed to know. 
Mrs. Gaines is such a hard mistress that probably 
she makes Nan rise very early, and so Nan may 
have seen my father if he went early to the Worlo 
House.” 

She concluded to make an errand into Mrs. 
Gaines’ store to see if Nan were there. If Mrs. 
Gaines were in charge, then Nan would be at the 
house with only a child or two, and Faith could 
go there to question her. Opposite the Worlo 
House was a small fruit shop, and she proposed 
that Kiah should go there and wait for her while 
she prosecuted her inquiries. 

Nan was not at the shop, so Faith went to the 
house and, going round the back way, found the 
girl cleaning up the kitchen. She asked her for a 
drink and spoke kindly to her for a few minutes. 
Then : — 

You are very close to the hotel. Nan.” 

“ Closer than I want to be.” 

“ Does Mrs. Batt sell liquor ” 

There ’s no telling what she does.” 

Do you suppose she is a woman who would 


226 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


sell liquor and take things like household property 
or books or pictures as pay for it ? ” 

“ I don’t know. I don’t reckon there ’s any 
mean trick she ’d be above doing. I just hate 
her ! She flaunts around in her silk and feathers 
and flowers, as large as life, and she speaks to me 
and looks at me as if I was a dog. I ’ve got feel- 
ings, if I am poor. She ’s no license to sell, and if 
she does it on the sly, I just wish they ’d find her 
out and fine her ; that ’s what I do ! ” 

‘‘ Were you up early this morning ? ” 

“I’m always up with the chickens, or before 
them.” 

“Did you” — Faith flushed and hesitated — 
“see this morning early, or late last night — any 
stranger going in there — with a parcel ? ” 

“ There ’s always strangers with parcels going 
into hotels,” said Nan, looking keenly at poor 
Faith. 

Faith stood silent. 

Nan was not born to finesse and she had no 
refinements of education. She was rough because 
she had been roughly brought up ; as for Faith, 
she felt kindly to her, and would be glad to do 
her a service. Also, she would be doubly glad to 
do Mrs. Batt an injury. She spoke out roundly : — 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 22 J 

‘^See here, miss, once or twice I saw you in 
town here with a man, an oldish man — I don’t 
mean Kiah Kibble, the boatbuilder ; I know him ; 
he gives me tracts sometimes ; but another man, 
tall and rather handsome, and gentleman style, 
and looks as if he drank. Saw you come out of 
the drug store with him once, and he was talking 
mad like. Is that your father } ” 

Faith nodded. Oh, this was a hard errand that 
she had to do ! 

** I say, you won’t never, never tell that I set 
you on the track of it, will you You know I ’m 
only a poor girl, with no folks to stand up for me 
if people gets mad at me ; and Mrs. Batt will 
be just raving, and she and Aunt Gaines are 
pretty thick.” 

“I will not refer to you at all as having told 
me anything.” 

‘‘Well, then, — come round here, Mrs. Batt may 
see us talking, — I was out sweeping the walk 
’bout four o’clock this morning and I saw that 
very man — your father — slipping in behind the 
hotel with a right smart-sized jug in one hand, 
and under his arm a biggish bundle in a news- 
paper ; looked to me just like picters, and I says 
to myself : ‘ There ’s a man carrying off things 


228 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


from his home as he has no business to carry 
off, and if he’s that sweet-spoken, pretty young 
lady’s pa,’ I says, ‘just as like as not it’s some 
of her things old Batt ’s getting.’ ” 

Faith gave a sob. “ But so early ! he could not 
get in then.” 

“ I reckon he hung round the carriage house 
till ’bout six, and then old Mrs. Batt ’s up, and he 
could bargain for his truck. It ’s my idea that 
he slept in the carriage house ’bout three weeks 
ago, when he got too full to go home. He did 
break out then, did n’t he ” 

Oh ! the misery of this shameful investigation ! 

“ Thank you for telling me all that you have,” 
said Faith. “ I will go out by the side gate so 
that Mrs. Batt may not see me and trouble you.” 

“ Hateful old thing!” said Nan. But this ad- 
jective “old ” was just used to express her dislike, 
for in fact Mrs. Batt was not yet of middle age. 

Faith went over to the fruit store and she and 
Kiah walked up the street for private conversation. 
“ He has been getting his liquor at the Worlo 
House. He had a jugful this morning. I don’t 
know where he is drinking it ; but he brought 
the pictures.” 

“ What shall we do now to get them, and then 
to find him ? ” 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER, 229 

“The simplest way seems to me best/' said 
Faith. “Let us go straight to the hotel parlor 
and ask for Mrs. Batt.” 

Faith’s courage had now risen to the situation. 
That this bold bad woman should have the pic- 
tures which Kenneth had given her was intoler- 
able. They walked quietly into the Worlo House 
and asked for the proprietress. In marched Mrs. 
Batt in a pink wrapper trimmed with lace ; her 
hair was much befrizzed, and she wore long 
earrings. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Kibble ! It is Mr. Kib- 
ble, I think ; I ’ve seen you pass. Is the young 
lady looking for board ? ” 

“ No,” said Faith, erect, calm, firm ; “I am 
looking for some of my property — these three 
pictures which hang here on your wall. You took 
them this morning from my father for a jug of 
whiskey. You must have known that he had no 
more right to sell the pictures t/ian you had to 
sell the liquor. The pictures belong to me and 
my sister. I ’ll trouble you to take them down and 
give them to Mr. Kibble. We came for them.” 

Mrs. Batt’s voice rose to a shrill scream of 
rage. “ Get out of here, both of you ! The pic- 
tures are mine ! I bought them in Boston six 
months ago. Go out, or I ’ll have you put out ! ” 


230 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


The pictures are mine, and had my name 
and my sister’s in pencil on the back. Have you 
rubbed them out ? I can prove property. I will 
not go without them. If you have us put out, 
we will come in at once with a constable and 
complain of you for selling liquor without a 
license.” 

Complain all that you like ; but go ! ” 

“ See here, Mrs. Batt, the easiest way will be to 
give up the pictures,” said Kiah, reaching down 
one from the wall. “ Here is the young lady’s 
name — Faith — on the back. Will you give 
them to us, or shall I stand guard over them, 
while she runs for a constable ? ” 

“I must also know,” said Faith, “if my father 
is drinking his liquor on your premises, for I must 
take him away.” 

“He isn’t here,” said Mrs. Batt. “I don’t 
allow low, broken-down old topers, such as he is, 
hanging round my house ! I should think you ’d 
be ashamed to claim him ; but probably you are 
used to it, and not above it. You look so. As 
for the pictures, they are cheap wretched things. 
I don’t care for them anyway. Take them.” 
And opening a closet door Mrs. Batt picked up 
the very paper and string in which Ralph Kemp 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER, 23 I 

had brought the pictures, and handed them to 
Kiah. 

Kiah took down the pictures, folded them up, 
and said : Come, Faith.” But when they were 
in the street he gave her the pictures and told 
her to wait while he went around and searched 
the back premises to see if her father were there. 

** I think he must have gone away, as she 
said,” he reported when he returned and took 
possession of the pictures. “ Let us move along 
this way. It is now after eleven. I will stop in 
the little grocery at the fork of the road and buy 
us something to eat, and perhaps they can tell me 
which way your father went. It is my opinion 
that Mrs. Batt made him take his jug away, and 
he has gone somewheres to drink it at leisure.” 

When Kiah came out of the little grocery, 
bringing a package of eatables, he said: “They 
saw your father going across to those pine woods 
about half-past seven o’clock. That is not much 
out of our way. I think we may find him there.” 

Those were beautiful woods, and this was a 
beautiful day. The hot sun smote the pines and 
drew from them rich aromatic odors ; the red- 
dish pine needles made a soft, elastic carpet, and 
through the trees the sunshine sifted, flecking 


232 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


the earth with light. The pine woods were very 
still in this hot noon ; there was no sound but the 
ceaseless whisper of the pines, the click of falling 
needles or cones, and the light patter of squirrels’ 
feet running along the branches, while tap, tap, 
tap, from a distance, came a woodpecker’s drum- 
ming on a tree. Oh, how sweet and lovely and 
soothing is nature, drawing our hearts by her rest- 
ful calms ! What a contrast to the passion-tossed 
life of humanity is this sweet growth and quiet 
of the woods ! 

Faith, overworn by her morning of distressful 
excitement, sank back upon a cushion of pine 
needles, leaned against a tree, and took off her 
hat to let the fragrant breeze cool her flushed 
unhappy face. Her breath came in little panting 
sobs ; she looked utterly desolate. 

Kiah laid down his parcels without a word, and 
with a little tin pail he had bought at the grocery 
went to hunt up a spring. 

I don’t see nor hear anything of your father,” 
he said as he came back ; “ but first of all. Miss 
Faith, you must eat a little something. You are 
tired out, and food will give you strength and 
courage for all that is to come. Keep up heart ! 
We have your pictures, and soon we ’ll have 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 233 

your father. I haven’t anything very good to 
offer you. All I could get yonder was cheese 
and crackers and gingersnaps and a little can of 
tongue. Try and eat a bite, Miss Faith.” 

At first Faith felt as if she could not take a 
mouthful ; but that hurt Kiah’s feelings, so she 
ate, and then found that she was very hungry, 
and was all the better for eating. 

When the meal was over Kiah proposed that 
Faith should rest where she was, and he should 
explore the wood for her father. But when Kiah 
was out of sight inaction seemed dreadful to Faith, 
and she started up to investigate on her own 
account. She went hither and thither, searching 
vainly, and at last stopped, not far from a huge 
pile of brush, the trimmings of trees that had 
been cut up for firewood. As she stood there, 
deeply discouraged, she felt as if some one were 
watching her, and her eyes were presently drawn 
toward a place in the brush heap where she saw 
a pair of eyes, and part of a face, regarding her 
from the further side of the pile. This must be 
her father. She went straight around the heap. 

There sat her father. After his first dram he 
had gone to sleep, as he had not been in bed all 
night. He had roused, and been drinking a little 


234 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


more, but carefully, as he purposed taking the day 
for it. He sat against the stump of the destroyed 
pine, and the fatal jug was near him. He said 
not a word as Faith drew near and knelt down 
beside him. 

Father ! ” 

Infinite sorrow and reproach in her tone and 
face. 

‘‘Go away, child. You are too far from home. 
Why are you here?” 

“ To take what is my own,” said Faith. “ The 
liquor in this jug is mine. You paid for it with 
my pictures.” 

“Nonsense, girl! It is not fit for women — 
nor for men who know how ^o rule their appe- 
tites. To me it is a nece'issity.” 

“ I can do what I will with my own,” said Faith 
masterfully ; and rising to her feet she seized the 
jug with a quick motion and whirled it against a 
big bowlder lying near. 

“GiF!” cried her father angrily. “Now I 
shall h \ ; ♦’o go for more.” 

“ You Vvill not go for more,” said Faith, bending 
toward him. “ I will help you against the demon 
that is destroying you. Come home to good little 
Letty. Just think how badly she feels for you 
to-day.” 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER, 


235 


I shall never go home again. I shall only 
make you two miserable, and carry off everything 
that you have.” 

“Then I will go and get the things back,- as I 
have the pictures.” 

“ You got back the pictures.^” said the father, 
having the grace to blush. 

“ Yes, I did ; and you can get no more whiskey 
at the Worlo House. Where will you try next, 
father .!* ” 

“ Faith, I hate you ! ” 

“ Not when you are sober, father. Come, go 
home with me. Think how comfortable Letty 
and I make you sometimes. Think of the night 
my mother died. Do you remember, she prayed 
for you, and she asked you to promise to be good 
to the children } You said yes.” 

“ But I have been bad to you ever since ! I 
have lied to the dead.” 

“And you repent of that You can be for- 
given.” Faith had knelt down again, her hand on 
her father’s knee. “ Listen, father ! Let us pray 
for you ; let us ask God for help, and you will be 
helped.” 

“You may pray all you like,” said Ralph ; “ it 
can neither help nor hinder me. The fact is, 


236 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

Faith, as I have said before, I am where I don t 
care. Conscience is dead ; my love for you chil- 
dren is nearly dead ; my memory of your mother, 
of my mother, is nearly dead also. Can such dry 
bones live } ” 

^‘Yes: by the breath of God’s Spirit. Bow 
your head, father ; you must pray.” 

“ It is of no use,” said Ralph ; but he bent his 
head and listened, and the sobbing prayer of the 
daughter may have been of some use, for when 
it was ended he suffered her to take him by the 
hand and lead him away, and so they met Kiah 
Kibble coming from a vain search in the wood. 

Kiah proposed that Kemp should have some 
of the luncheon that was left. At first Ralph 
refused, then consented, and ate while Kiah 
brought him the quart pail full of water. He 
drank half of it and rinsed his face and head 
with the remainder. 

Come,” he said quietly, ‘‘ let us go home ; 
your sister will be wondering where you are. It 
must be some time after noon.” 

“ It is half-past one,” said Kiah. 

Father gave a glance at the large parcel of the 
pictures under Kiah’s arm, but made no comment. 

The next day Kenneth called at the little house. 


FA THE/? AND DAUGHTER. 


237 


while Ralph sat reading to his daughters. He 
remained chatting pleasantly for about an hour, 
and then asked Faith to walk on the beach with 
him. 

Faith avoided Letty’s eyes, which would say 
“No,” and reached for her hat. Was not yes- 
terday enough of misery > Why should she not 
have a little pleasure in her life to-day.? 

“ I am glad those pictures were on the wall,” 
said father to Letty when Faith and Kenneth had 
passed down the beach. 

“They came near not being there, father.” 

“ Yes : I ’ll tell you, Letty, what I wish. I wish 
you and Faith would go off and save yourselves 
while you can, and leave me to take my own 
chances. I ’m too much trouble to you, and I 
never shall be anything else. I ’m not worth 
your worrying about — and who knows how much 
worse I shall be some day .? You can’t understand 1 
the tyranny of appetite. You feel as if I could 
stop when I wanted to. It is not in me. If you 
girls will just go and leave me, I ’ll promise you 
solemnly never to go near you or trouble you.” 

“ We don’t want any such promise, father. We 
want to do our duty. I promised mother ; I must 
keep my word.” 


238 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

‘^When a person is a victim of the drink 
mania,” said her father coolly, he cares no more 
for his word than for a burnt straw. As for this 
stickling for truth, for a word, have you observed, 
Letty, that the old pagans had very little regard 
for that kind of honor ? I think, on the whole, 
this scrupulosity for promise-keeping is a very 
commercial kind of virtue — the outgrowth of the 
shop-keeping character.” 

“Faith should be here to argue that with you, 
father,” said Letty. 

A few days after this the father and his two 
daughters walked over to the boatbuilder’s shop, 
after supper. 

Kiah brought out his violin and proposed that 
they should have a little music. While this was 
going on, a girl came walking swiftly up the 
beach. She looked hot, angry, miserable; she 
had been crying, and had a bundle in her arms. 
It was Nan Gaines. 

“ I got into trouble for what I told you, miss,” 
she said, throwing her bundle down at Faith’s 
feet. “ That old Batt had seen you talking to 
me — or some of her servants had, and she set on 
my aunt to charging me with it, and she scolded 
me for an hour, and then when I said my tongue 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


239 


was my own, she slapped me and said I should n’t 
stay there another hour. She will want me back 
to-morrow, but I won’t go. I ’ve slaved long 
enough for her. But it is just on the edge of 
evening, and I had nowhere to go, so I did up 
my bundle and came to you.” 

Faith looked aghast at this incident. What 
could she and Letty do with Nan, in their poverty 
and with father’s vagaries } 

But Kiah interfered : “ See here, child, these 
young ladies have no room and no money, but I 
can take you in. I have an old woman to keep 
my house, but she is not much at sewing, and 
she ’s no company. I ’ll take you for a daughter, 
if you like to try it. I think I shall like at last 
to hear One say, ' I was a stranger, and ye took 
me in.’ ” 


CHAPTER XV. 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 

“ If on my theme I rightly think, 

There are five reasons why men drink: 

Good wine, a friend, because I ’m dry, 

Or any other reason why.” 

TT is one of the saddest things in a world where 
much is sad, to see a family upon the down 
grade, each year, each month marking the deca- 
dence of the home and the degradation of the 
individuals. To see a family rising to better and 
better things, the children reaching wider influ- 
ence and deeper knowledge and better position 
than their parents have had — this is harmonious 
with general human progress, and is a comfortable 
spectacle. Toward this, with concerted intention, 
all the members of families should aim ; it should 
be part of the family projects, freely discussed by 
old and young. 

There was none of this cheering improvement 
in the house on the beach ; each semester saw 
family affairs showing a little darker for Ralph 
Kemp and his daughters. The two girls now 

240 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 24 1 

never knew when their father would indulge him- 
self ; his drinking had now no periodicity which 
could be relied upon. Under stress of this con- 
stant watchfulness, the sisters began to look anx- 
ious and careworn. 

About six miles from the boatbuilder’s house, 
there was a pretty rural ground where a yearly 
camp meeting* was held, and to go there for a 
week, listen to the sermons and share in the sing- 
ing and prayers, was the great treat of Kiah 
Kibble’s life. This year his old housekeeper went 
also, and Nan, who had settled herself very com- 
fortably as a part of Kiah’s family, was left to 
keep house for herself and the little boy. Nan 
often came over to see the sisters ; she considered 
them her friends, and was loyally attached to 
them, while as part of her friendship she dis- 
cussed their affairs with a distressing frankness, 
of the unpleasantness of which she was not at all 
aware. 

The second morning of Kiah’s absence Nan 
came running up the beach, evidently with some- 
thing to communicate. Letty went out to meet 
her. Father had disappeared before his daughters 
awoke. What was to Letty even worse, as newer 
and more unexpected. Faith was unable to rise, 


242 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

having a terrible headache and considerable fever. 
Faith had not spent a day in bed for four years, 
and Letty was proportionately anxious. 

“I shall be all right to-morrow,” said Faith. 
“ Darken the room, Letty, and let me keep quiet. 
It is nothing, and you know just what to do 
for me.” 

She did not inquire about her father ; perhaps 
in the severity of her pain she forgot him ; per- 
haps she did not wish to know of an evil which 
she could not help. 

Letty, on her part, said nothing, but having 
made her sister as comfortable as she could, and 
placed a cooling drink near her hand, went down 
to her work at the lower room window. When 
she saw Nan, she went out to meet her. 

“What is the matter.? Have you any bad 
news .? Speak softly, for my sister is sick in 
bed.” 

“ I should say I had bad news ! And Miss 
Faith laid up ! I don’t know then what you will 
do ! Nothing, I reckon, for of course you can’t 
get along as she can.” 

“ But what is it. Nan — about father .? ” 

“ Of course. Is n’t it always about him .? You 
two would get on well enough if it was n’t for 


LETTY rO THE RESCUE. 


243 


him. A boy named Carson came up from the 
village to fish to-day, and he was getting clams for 
bait near the boathouse, and he told me your 
father was drinking in at Jeffers’ saloon. He said 
the last time he got drunk there the men teased 
him, and he got mad and threw a bottle through 
the window and made a big fuss ; and Jeffers said, 
sure as he was a living man, if he acted like that 
there again, he’d have him arrested and put in 
jail for a month. You girls would feel mighty bad 
about that, would n’t you } And so would your 
father, for when he ’s not in liquor he ’s a mighty 
big-feeling gentleman.” 

“And he is at Jeffers’ again } ” gasped Letty. 

“Yes; t’other two places won’t let him have 
any. Hill promised Mr. Kibble that he would n’t, 
and he owes at the other place. The Carson boy 
says your father is drinking, and the men tease 
him and call him ‘president ’ and ‘professor ’ and 
try to get him to talk Latin and Greek. By noon 
he ’ll get rampageous, and first you know he will 
be in jail. I reckoned maybe Miss Faith would 
go over and bring him home, but of course you 
can’t do anything.” 

“ If I were near him, I could manage him better 
than she can.” 


244 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“ But you can’t walk over there.” 

Letty looked about. There, going toward the 
hotel, was the grocer’s cart. It passed some dis- 
tance above her house, and after calling at the 
hotel returned to the town. When they needed 
any supplies for the house, she or Faith went up 
to the beach to where the cart crossed, and spoke 
to the grocer. He was a friendly young fellow, 
and Letty was sure he would take her back to 
town with him, if she went up and waited for him 
at the crossing. 

“I will go to town with Barry,” she said, 'Hf I 
can stop him at the crossway. Nan, will you sit 
quietly in the house until I come back, and only 
go to Faith or speak to her if she calls ? Maybe 
she will fall asleep and know nothing of this. 
She was awake nearly all night. I ’ll get back 
from town some way.” 

‘‘All right,” said Nan cordially. “I will bring 
you your hat and cape from the house, and I ’ll 
go to the crossroad with you ; you can walk easier 
if I take you along by the arm as your sister 
does.” 

Having reached Barry’s cart in time, Letty 
soon was riding to the village beside the grocer. 
He tried to be agreeable and chatted, but poor 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 


245 


Letty’s heart was so heavy she could scarcely 
answer him. She was ashamed to tell where she 
was going, or for what, but trusted to find her 
way to the saloon after she had been left at the 
druggist’s, where she bought something for Faith. 

As saloons are generally blatantly established 
upon the public way, Letty had not far to go 
before she saw the sign. Bill Jeffers, and peep- 
ing through the window, there at a table was her 
father, intoxicated, in a heated discussion, angry, 
flushed ; other men who were drinking listening 
with a jeering look; while Jeffers from behind 
the bar seemed on the watch for mischief. The 
door of the saloon was open and Letty heard 
plainly the subject of her father’s harangue ; she 
had heard it before ; it was not new to her : he 
discussed the ethics of Aristotle. Terrified, not 
at her father, but at his comrades, Letty stole 
into the dreaded saloon. Short as a child, but 
with long dress and hair done up behind like 
a woman, her face piteous and terrified as a 
child’s, but careful and grave as a woman’s, Letty, 
whom none of these men had ever seen before, 
attracted instant attention. 

“ Well, young one, what do you want ? ” de- 
manded Jeffers. 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘‘ I want my father,” said Letty, going straight 
toward Ralph. 

“Now see here!” bawled Jeffers, “it’s one of 
my set rules not to have no kids nor women folks 
coming here after men. This is my place, and 
when the men gets done drinking their folks can 
wait for ’em outside.” 

“ I ’ll take him right away,” said Letty hur- 
riedly. “ I was afraid if he stayed he might 
quarrel, and I heard that you said you would 
send him to jail.” 

“ So I will, if he breaks any more windows or 
raises a row.” 

“ I ’ll take him out, and I wish, please, you ’d 
never sell him any more, for then when he gets it 
he does n’t know what he is doing.” 

Jeffers laughed loudly. “ If that ain’t cool ! I 
sell it to all that brings me their money. Cash 
sure is my rule.” 

Letty had drawn near her father. She took 
the glass from between his hands and touched his 
shoulder, saying gently, “Come now, dear, you 
and I will go home.” 

“ Letty ! why are you here This is no place 
for a girl. Go home at once I Why are you 
meddling with me } You take too much on your- 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 


247 


self, girl ! The Roman women always remained 
in the privacy of their own homes. Go away, I 
say ! I won’t be watched and managed by you 
two girls ! It is just disgraceful ! ” 

His voice w'as loud and fierce, he gesticulated 
wildly, and all the men laughed. But there was 
one way in which Letty could always quiet her 
father and reduce him to submission like a tamed 
wild beast. She had the face and the voice of her 
father’s mother. Her voice, if she had been left 
to her normal development like Faith, would have 
been powerful, but now it was, while not strong, 
yet unusually sweet and true. Perhaps its tones 
brought back the mother love of old, the boyish 
reverence and devotion, for when Letty sang 
to him her father was always conquered. She 
thought nothing of the rude men standing about ; 
she thought only of her father and how she must 
take him away and save him from himself. She 
took both his resisting tremulous hands in hers 
and with her eyes fixed on his began to sing : — 

“ While I on earth abide, 

Light of the world, 

Be thou ray only Guide, 

Light of the world. 

Danger alone I see, 

No hand outstretched to rae, 

Save when I turn to thee. 

Light of the world I 


248 the house on the beach. 


I have been lured away, 

Light of the world. 

Far from thy paths to stray, 

Light of the world, 

Like a bark tempest-tossed, 

Rudder and compass lost. 

Till thy beam o’er me crossed. 

Light of the world ! 

There is an angel band, 

Light of the world. 

Close by thy throne they stand. 

Light of the world. 

They sing the song of praise. 

Join in the heavenly lays, 

There I my voice would raise. 

Light of the world ! ” 

Father was now weeping like a child. Perhaps 
this “seemed to him like his mother’s voice sing- 
ing in Paradise.” He looked at Letty. “Take 
me away with you, little girl. Take me away. 
There is fire within and fire all around me, and 
these faces here look at me like fiends from the 
pit. Take me away.” 

Father was not the only one weeping. Silence 
had. fallen on the saloon, glasses were set down, 
tears were on rough faces. 

Jeffers resented this situation. “ Here, get out 
of this ! ” he said in a threatening voice, coming 
from his bar. “ I don’t keep no dime museum or 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 


249 

monl^ey show for dwarfs or giantesses, or Salva- 
tion Army singing. You clear out ! ” 

‘‘ How dare you speak so to my child ! ” shouted 
Ralph furiously. 

‘‘You wind up, Jeffers; you sha’n’t have it all 
your own way here,” cried a herculean fellow, 
seizing Jeffers by the shoulders. “Now hold 
your tongue or I ’ll give you a bat that won’t be 
good for you. Sit down there in your bar, tend 
to your glasses, and don’t you move or speak. 
We are going to have some more singing. We 
don’t often get a treat like this. Kemp, your 
little girl is all right ; you just keep still and let 
her stand beside you ; she is going to sing to 
us poor wretches. Start in, little one ; we don’t 
often hear about that Light, or anything else 
that ’s very good.” 

Letty trembled inwardly, but dared not refuse. 
Besides, she suddenly thought that this might be 
a call to do some service for her Lord. Letty felt 
as if she were a helpless little person who could 
serve him very little. She began to sing again : — 

“ O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

Who doth not crave for rest? 

Who would not seek that happy land 
Where they that loved are blest? 


250 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


Where loyal hearts and true 
Stand ever in the light, 

All rapture through and through, 

In God’s most holy sight. 

O Paradise! O Paradise! 

The world is growing old ; 

Who would not be at rest and free 
Where love is never cold? 

Where loyal hearts and true 
Stand ever in the light, 

All rapture through and through, 

In God’s most holy sight.” 

One more hymn she sang, but dared not linger 
longer. The music might lose its effect and 
her father would become rebellious. 

“ I am tired,” she said. “ I must go now. 
I wish you would not let my father come here 
any more.” And she led Ralph away. The men 
watched her going off, holding her unsteady 
father by the hand. 

‘‘She’ll never get him home,” said Luke Fol- 
som, who had come in. “ She is n’t strong enough 
to walk two miles and a half on sandy roads. 
And just like enough Kemp will get drowsy 
going at that gait and will lie down and sleep 
for hours.” 

“ Let us cross over and meet them as they get 
out of town, and take them home. Two of us can 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 

get Kemp along and two of us can cross hands 
and carry her,” said Letty’s big champion. 

This proposition was received as a flash of gen- 
ius. They did not stop to consider whether this 
help would or would not be welcome to Letty. 
They concluded that she positively could not get 
along without it, and perhaps she could not. 
Letty, less used than Faith to affairs, had set 
off from home without any money. She was ter- 
rified when she saw the four men coming up. 
They were not drunk, but had all been drinking. 
They were strangers, all but Luke Folsom, whom 
she disliked greatly ; were they come to persuade 
father to go back to the saloon } 

‘‘ We ’re going to help you home, little one,” 
said the big man heartily, “and we don’t mean 
to let Jeffers sell any more drink to your dad : 
’t ain’t fair to such a little gal as you are. Now 
you can’t foot it in this deep sand ; you look ready 
to drop now. Luke and me will cross hands and 
make a princess chair for you, and the other two 
will help your father along right smart, and we ’ll 
get you home in no time. All we ask is that 
you’ll sing while we take you along. You sing 
plumb like a bird.” 

How thankful Letty was that they went round 


252 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

by the beach and met no one but Kiah Kibble’s 
boy and his fishing friend, the boy Carson, as she 
was taken home in this kind of state ! Her voice 
trembled, but she sang away bravely, ‘'Rock of 
Ages,” “Abide with Me,” and “Come, ye Discon- 
solate.” As boys whistle to keep their courage 
up when they walk through the wood at night, so 
Letty sang partly to keep her courage up, and her 
hymns were prayers. 

At last they were within sight of home. 

“Won’t you please let us go on alone now.? ” she 
said. “ My sister is sick, and I ’m afraid if you 
go up to the house, it may frighten her and make 
her worse. Thank you ; you have been very kind.” 

The curious cortege at once came to a halt, and 
took leave very quietly. Father was soon sent to 
bed. Faith was found in a comfortable sleep, and 
Nan had prepared a nice tea-dinner for herself 
and Letty. 

It was only a day or two after, when the sisters 
were at their work and father had been persuaded 
to sit down and make a hammock, that Kenneth 
Julian came in. 

“ I ’m only here for a day,” he said. “ I came 
on business this time for my uncle. How are 
you all } ” 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 


253 


Well,” said the sisters quietly. 

“ I am not well,” said father calmly, ‘‘because I 
have not been doing well. There is no need for 
me to try to deceive you, Mr. Julian, and I don’t 
care to do it. You know indulgence in drink is 
my besetting sin ; and have you not observed, my 
young friend, that it is often the most gifted 
of men who become slaves of drink.? The fine 
scholar, the handsome genial boy, the universal 
favorite, fall. I wonder how you have escaped ! 
And often the nobler the gifts, the deeper the 
degradation. Let me call to the minds of you 
young people a few notable instances. How many 
tears have been shed over Robert Burns ! What 
a genius was there ! what love of nature ! what 
tenderness, what sympathy ! In much he was 
like David, the singer of Israel. The shepherd 
and the plowman, sweet lyrists both ! But Burns 
yielded to the allurements of drink and perished 
miserably. John Logan, author of some of the 
finest Scottish hymns, minister in the town of 
Leith, drank himself to death at the age of forty- 
four. I am told that in the penny or two-penny 
lodgings and the police lodgings in London, men 
who have been distinguished lawyers, doctors, and 
preachers, first-class graduates of Oxford and 


254 HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

Cambridge, are nightly found. I have cried, as 
a lad, over Charles Lamb, little thinking that I 
should have his fate, but not his fame. Where 
was there a brighter scholar, a more subtle genius, 
than Hartley Coleridge, brilliant son of a brilliant 
father ? but he too went down to ruin before the 
demon of strong drink. You can match him with 
Edgar Allan Poe, singer and sot. Faith would 
place beside these DeQuincey and S. T. Coleridge, 
drunkards on opium. Over how many premature 
graves can be written. Destroyed by drink ! As 
Marius sat musing on the ruins of Carthage, so I 
sit in spirit by that great grave where yearly sixty 
thousand victims of strong drink are laid, and I 
wonder much why men are born to die in this way, 
and why men are to be found to beguile brother 
men to their ruin. My young friends, this is a 
terrible mystery.” 

Father was yet in that exalte which with 
him succeeded the indulgence in liquor. Alas 
for this father — a man of culture, who had pur- 
sued learning as an end, and exalted the higher 
part of his nature, bearing eloquent testimony to 
the superiority of the intellectual over the phys- 
ical ! What had now become of his testimony ? 
He sat there a terrible example of the vices that 
he deprecated. 


LETTY TO THE RESCUE. 


255 


As the father talked, well but with prolixity, a 
deep and lasting lesson was borne in on the mind 
of Kenneth Julian. Surely nothing but the grace 
of God can stay the tempted soul or help the 
erring one to rise superior to the dominance of 
depraved appetite. Social status, the love of 
family, the blessings of a refined, cultivated type 
of life, highest intellectual training — all fall pow- 
erless; only that protection is assured and impreg- 
nable which comes from the indwelling of the 
Holy Ghost. 

The calls of Kenneth on the sisters were often 
seasons of joyous laughter and merry jest, but to- 
day deep despondency seemed to brood over them 
all. The remarks of father on a sin of which he 
was a lamentable example did not serve to enliven 
his auditors. Letty with mechanical precision 
drew gold and silver thread in and out of green 
satin stretched upon a frame. Faith pulled 
threads for drawn work, and the wind coming in 
at the open door bore the vagrant shreds here and 
there ; but no play of happiness flitted across the 
faces of Ralph Kemp’s daughters. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 

“What magnified monsters circle therein, 
Ragged and stained with filth and mud, 
Some plague-spotted and some with blood. 
Shapes of misery, pain, and sin.” 



AITH KEMP thought that she had a pretty 


hard battle to fight in life. She daily- 
found need for all the patience and courage which 
she could command. It was hard enough to en- 
dure, and sometimes enduring requires more valor 
than doing. But the time came to Faith when 
she had to gather up valor for more than endur- 
ing, and instead of foes without she had to 
encounter strong temptation, foes from within, 
and it is on these fields of inner strife that we 
fight our hardest battles and achieve our finest 
victories. 

“ I wish,” said Letty one morning to Faith, 
“that Mr. Julian would stop coming here. The 
times when he comes this summer are so irreg- 
ular, and father is so very uncertain in his ways, 
too, that I am in constant terror for fear a visitor 


266 


SHE FO UGHl ' WITH DR A G ONS. 257 

should come in and find our poor father in one of 
his worst states. I wish he would n’t come ! ” 

“You can’t wish it any more than I do,” saM 
Faith. “ I have been so mortified and distracted 
by things that have happened here with father 
that it seems to me as if I should be one of the 
most thankful persons in the world if we might 
be left here in quiet and never see a human face 
except each other’s.” 

“And Hugh,” said Letty. 

“ Not Hugh either,” insisted Faith. “ I don’t 
yearn to have the poor dear boy come here for 
misery and mortification like ours.” 

“ I don’t think Mr. Julian will stop coming,” 
said Letty. “ He cares more for you than as a 
mere friend ; I can see it.” 

“ Well, I don’t care for him. I don’t care for 
any one but you, Letty. I ’ve been miserable and 
ashamed until I nearly hate every one else in the 
world. It is dreadful to live in such an unchris- 
tian frame of mind ; ” and Faith began to cry. 

If Faith were in an unchristian frame and far 
from a temper of holy charity, Kenneth, on the 
contrary, was more and more inclined to love his 
neighbor fully as well as himself, and this knowl- 
edge pressed upon him ; and, like the divisions 


258 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 

of Reuben in Deborah’s time, it caused “ great 
searchings of heart.” When Kenneth pictured 
to himself how happy he might be with the 
charming Faith for his wife, he would have 
desired nothing better than to go to the house 
on the beach and ask her to share his fortunes. 
When he went up there and saw Faith’s lovely 
face constantly growing sadder and more weary ; 
when he noted that the stress upon her of her 
father’s irregularities was making her nervous and 
care-worn ; when he saw how sordid were her 
surroundings and the circumstances of her daily 
life, while all her tastes were for what was refined 
and beautiful and pure, — he felt as if he must 
take her far away from all that was so hard and 
bitter and place her where all should be bright 
and pleasant. He did not so much question 
whether Faith would go; her position at present 
seemed to him so distressful that he did not see 
how she could bring herself to endure it at all. 

But when Kenneth looked at his own situation 
he found much to trouble him. The home where 
he lived belonged equally to Patty and himself. 
He hardly felt justified in setting up an independ- 
ent establishment at the beginning of his busi- 
ness life. For twenty years Uncle Doctor had 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 


259 


had his home with his wards, who had become to 
him as his own children. To disturb the old man 
and make him unhappy in his home would be a 
poor recompense for a life of faithfulness and 
kindness. Kenneth felt that his home must be 
Uncle Doctor’s as long as the good but opinion- 
ated old gentleman should live. He told himself 
that a household established on strife, injustice, or 
ingratitude would not be a household that could 
rest under the benediction of God. To think of 
setting up a home where ‘‘father” should be an 
inmate was impossible. What should be done 
with “father”.!^ The idea of an asylum crossed 
Kenneth’s mind ; that might be the best place 
for him. And Letty } Well, Letty could share 
F'aith’s home; but Kenneth realized that Uncle 
Doctor would rise in arms if he proposed taking 
a wife and inaugurating domestic life by putting 
a father-in-law in an asylum and bringing home 
a dwarfed sister. Uncle Doctor had a singular 
adoration of beauty, and Kenneth had relied on 
that trait to make him favorable to Faith. At the 
same time, until he had had experience of the 
beauty of her character, it would make him very 
unfavorable to Letty. Uncle Doctor was stub- 
born to a degree ; he was full of queer conceits. 


260 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


and at his first hearing of Faith he had taken 
a violent prejudice against all that regarded 
her. 

'‘It is these hasty, unequal marriages, Ken- 
neth,” said Uncle Doctor, “that have brought 
upon our land the shame and evil of divorce and 
the crying iniquity of the marriage of divorced 
people. God is the God of covenant-keeping, 
and the marriage covenant is in his eyes par- 
ticularly sacred. Men and women vow at God’s 
altars to love and cherish until death parts them, 
and presently they are before the civil tribunal 
asking for divorce — on grounds of incompati- 
bility ! Why are they incompatible ? They were 
incompatible when they married, and they might 
have known it. There was nothing in their tem- 
pers or habits of life or opinions to make them 
compatible, but they married on the impulse of 
the hour, urged by fleeting fancy, by whim, and 
they called on God to ratify the vows based on 
whims — and then appealed to men to put asunder 
what God had joined. The land is full of the 
scandal of broken homes, of children half or- 
phaned, but not by death ; of households quarrel- 
ing about property and the custody of minors — 
open and public desecration of the home instead 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DEACONS. 


261 


of charity and the fear of God keeping watch at 
the hearthstone. You tell me, and your aunt and 
Patty tell me, that you have taken a great fancy 
to some fisher’s girl up at the beach.” 

I never said a fancy, uncle — I love the girl 
sincerely.” 

‘‘You think you do, no doubt; but what have 
you to base love on — a face that looks to you 
pretty now, because it is fresh and young ; a pleas- 
ant day or two by the sea, when you had every- 
thing about you to make you merry and easily 
satisfied ? That will not afford a basis for a love 
that must weather sickness, anxiety, age, possibly 
poverty, and unusual trials. You would bring to 
your home a girl without education or cultivation 
or the habits of the life you live, and you would 
find her unfitted for that life. When the first 
glamour of your fancy wore off, you would find her 
discontented, incapable of taking an equal place 
among your friends, and you would be ashamed of 
her and blame her for your mortification, and your 
love would prove not love but an idle fleeting 
fancy, and would turn to weariness and dislike. 
Do you understand the great injustice you would 
do her } ” 

“You are all out, uncle; you don’t understand 


262 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


the matter at all. Faith is not only remarkably 
beautiful, as Aunt Parvin can tell you, but she is 
admirably well educated and well read, and very 
refined and lovely, and gracious in her ways. I 
don’t know any young lady as much so. As for 
her family, she is of good family — she is Hugh 
Kemp’s sister and Mr. Tom Wharton’s niece.” 

Kenneth had been driven to this statement. 
Whereupon Uncle Doctor took occasion to make 
acquaintance with Mr. Wharton and, not mention- 
ing his nieces, but turning the conversation upon 
Hugh, he was presently treated to a tirade against 
Ralph Kemp, as a fiend in human shape, a crea- 
ture guilty of the most enormous follies, the most 
reckless and selfish, weak and shameless of mor- 
tals. There was no pity for Ralph Kemp in Tom 
Wharton’s soul — no sympathy, no comprehension 
of his temptations, no understanding of his suf- 
erings. The two men had never in any way 
harmonized, and Tom Wharton had a deep rage 
cherished in his soul, because of his sister’s sor- 
rows and early death, all of which he charged, and 
no doubt very rightly, to her husband’s account. 

Now when Uncle Doctor had heard this discus- 
sion of Ralph Kemp and his misdeeds, he was 
more resolutely opposed to Faith than ever, and 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 263 

lectured his nephew roundly upon meditating 
entanglements with any such person. 

Kenneth, being by no means a headstrong or 
reckless young man, took council with himself 
that waiting patience might be the most available 
aid he could secure. In another year Hugh Kemp 
would be free from his promise to his uncle. 
Then he could shut up his father where he would 
be safe from himself, and the two sisters could be 
brought to the city. If they did not live with 
their uncle, they could have a home with their 
brother, and Kenneth was sure that when once 
Uncle Doctor saw Faith, and realized the loveliness 
of her character and manners and the excellence 
of her education, he would be well content. 

“ I feel that I owe to Uncle Doctor all the 
deference that I would pay to a father. He has 
acted like a father to us, and I’ve seen many 
fathers quite as stubborn as he is,” said Kenneth 
to his sister. 

“Yes,” said Patty, laughing; “queer as it may 
seem to us, parents do sometimes hold opinions 
contrary to those of their children ! Why don’t 
you inveigle Uncle Doctor to going to the beach 
with you, and let the acquaintance of the young 
lady reconcile him to the affair 


264 HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

** I ’d be worse off than ever, Patty,” said Ken- 
neth. “ He would be as hard on poor Mr. Kemp 
as Mr. Wharton is, and then you know Uncle 
Doctor’s whims ; he ’d take a dislike to poor little 
Letty, and she is the dearest little soul.” 

‘‘ Well, all right ; wait a while,” said Patty, who, 
despite her sisterly sympathies, was less interested 
in the subject than her brother was; “but what- 
ever you do, Ken, don’t forget that the Fifth Com- 
mandment takes in Uncle Doctor, for he is all the 
father you have.” 

“ I mean to remember it,” said Kenneth. 

And so he did. But sometimes a very little 
affair overthrows our best intentions. And more- 
over, Kenneth might have held that it was not a 
little affair at all to stroll up the beach to see 
Faith, and nearly an eighth of a mile from her 
house to hear yells and vociferations and vituper- 
ations, and to get sight through the window of 
Letty, her face hidden in her hands, weeping 
miserably, and then, as he quietly passed round 
the house, intent on going to Kiah Kibble to ask 
what this all meant, to find Faith crouched down 
in the long grasses behind a clump of beach-plum 
bushes, her head bowed to her lap, sobbing as if 
her heart would break. 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 265 

When Mr. Kemp, locked in his room, broke 
forth in a storm of maniacal rage, extraordinary 
even for him. Faith simply could not stay in the 
house to hear it. If she fled as aforetime to her 
grotto, Richard or some other might there intrude 
upon her misery. No one ever thought of cross- 
ing the tangle on the dune, and so she fled there, 
and, abandoning herself to her woe, stopping her 
ears to shut out that terrible din from the house, 
she knew nothing of approaching footsteps, until 
Kenneth was beside her. 

On his part, Kenneth had no idea of seeing 
Faith, until, turning with the little track about the 
bushes, she was almost at his feet. He was over- 
whelmed with sorrow and sympathy, and strong 
within him rose the manly instinct of protection. 
He knelt beside her : — 

''Faith, dear Faith, is this what you have to 
suffer } Tell me what has happened. Don’t cry 
so, dear girl ! ” 

Here now was the last drop of bitterness added 
to poor Faith’s cup — that Kenneth should enter 
into this scene of wretchedness ! 

"Nothing has happened more than always 
happens!” cried Faith. "Why do you ask me.^ 
You can hear for yourself. That is the way my 


266 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


poor crazy father always goes on, and dear little 
Letty sits in the house and endures it. But I am 
a coward and I fly ; and then people find me cry- 
ing, and ask useless questions. I wish you would 
go away, Mr. Julian. I want to be alone. I can’t 
bear people near me this way. It is not fair of 
you to come here and — Go away, won’t you.? ” 
Thus Faith, incoherent. 

*‘No; I cannot go away and leave you feeling 
like this. I am not people, I am only Kenneth ; 
and I don’t see why I should not know of your 
trouble and help you bear it. Is n’t that Scrip- 
ture, Faith.? — ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, 
and so fulfill the law of Christ.’ Trouble shared 
is halved, is it not, dear.?” 

“No, it is not!” retorted Faith, angry in her 
mortification, for she was an intensely proud girl. 
“ It is doubled in this case. My Letty and I bear 
one another’s burdens, and that is enough ; and 
we don’t want any other person to have anything 
to do with it or know about it. Will you go away, 
Mr. Julian .? I want to be alone.” 

“ No ; I cannot go away just now,” said Kenneth 
calmly. “ I think heaven sent me here to help 
you. If I had not come here in this unexpected 
way, I might never have known of all you have to 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 267 

endure, and I feel as if I had a right to know, 
because I love you. Faith. You must know that 
I do, and that your sorrow grieves me more than 
I can tell, and that I would gladly give my life 
to making you happy and sheltering you from 
trouble. It is not right, my dear, that your life 
should be wrecked like this. Do not allow it 
to be. I shall ask nothing more good and beau- 
tiful than to surround you with every comfort and 
happiness. This has been in my mind for a long 
while, and I have not dared to say it to you 
before.” 

“ I wish you had not said it now ! ” cried the 
unappeasable Faith. It is the most impossible 
thing I ever heard of.” 

But suddenly to Kenneth it did not seem im- 
possible at all. He had taken a resolution. The 
ways and means of life came before him like a 
vision. Why had he thought the question so 
difficult 1 It was clear enough what he could do. 
It was wrong that the crochets of Uncle Doctor 
should debar him of happiness and should leave 
this dear Faith to such a doleful lot. Patty could 
remain at the home and keep house for the 
Uncle Doctor. What more need Uncle Doctor 
ask 1 And he could find some cozy little flat, and 


268 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


furnish it prettily and simply, and he and Faith 
and Letty could live there in holy peace, while 
with the margin allowed him in income by this 
simple style of living, their father could be taken 
care of in some retreat, where he could damage 
neither himself nor any one else. When Uncle 
Doctor came to know Faith well, he would be 
more than satisfied with the step his nephew had 
taken ; until then, why, Kenneth could be happy 
and wait. 

All this passed before his mind with the swift- 
ness of a revelation — a vision of a happiness he 
could not forego. 

“ Listen,” he said, as Faith, her sobs having 
ceased, sat now beside him under the thorny plum 
bush, her hands clasped about her knees and her 
face turned away, while now and then her bosom 
heaved with the subsiding tempest of her emotion 
— “listen to me, dear. I can tell you just how 
things should be. It is wrong for you and Letty 
to live here as you do, and endure all these 
troubles. Your poor father is in constant danger 
of doing himself or you more serious injury. No 
one has physical and mental strength to stand 
such a strain as is here put upon you. I am 
miserable when I think of it ! You must be more 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DEACONS. 269 

just to yourself and little Letty than to endure 
this longer. I ask nothing better than to make 
a home for you and your sister. It will be a plain 
enough little home, but safe and happy and always 
improving. Letty shall be as cherished and wel- 
come there as my own sister. Patty will live with 
our uncle, but she will come and see us often, and 
will love you so much. Faith. Patty is one of the 
best girls in the world. Your father can be put 
in some retreat, where he will be comfortable and 
well cared for, and have all the books he wants. 
He will find plenty of other educated gentlemen 
there. There is, it seems, no limit to that kind of 
trouble in the world. You do not know, it cannot 
enter into your mind, how happy you will make 
me if you will only consent to let me have the 
care of you all in this way. I am not rich, but I 
am pretty comfortably off, and all that I have 
or ever shall have. Faith, is yours, if you will 
take it.” 

I cannot take it,” said Faith, turning her sor- 
rowful eyes upon him. '' I wish you would not 
offer it any more or say any more about it. I will 
not say what I might have done or felt if I had 
met you when I was situated as other girls are, 
and free to choose my life as others do. But I 


270 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


know what is my part now. I must stand by my 
sister and my father, and I cannot leave Letty 
and she cannot leave father. I never, never could 
marry you, or any one, and begin life by having 
you burdened with the support of my sister and 
the charge of my father, in the state he is in, 
at any retreat. When people have that kind of 
trouble in their family they should bear it them- 
selves and keep to themselves. You may think 
me too proud. I know I am proud : all the 
Kemps are, even if in father’s sin we have fallen 
so low. It is a right kind of pride, I think. I 
know my poor little Letty would feel just as I do. 
I am sure you must care for me very much, Mr. 
Julian, or you would not heartily offer to do all 
this for my family for my sake; but I cannot 
take it, and the very greatest kindness you can 
do me is never to mention it again.” 

“ Do not shut me off from hope in that way,” 
said Kenneth ; “ and remember, if you feel that 
this plan of mine would be burdensome to you, in 
a year or so your brother will share it with me. 
He and I have talked of his plans more than 
once.” 

“ Do not say any more about it. If Hugh cares 
for a drunken father, that is part of the burden 


SHE FOUGHT WITH DRAGONS. 27 1 

God lays upon him, and he cannot neglect it with- 
out sin. But no such burden has been laid on 
you, and I will not lay it on you. This is a foolish 
world, and before long people would credit you 
with having your own father in a drunkards’ 
retreat, not your father-in-law, and they would 
be saying : ‘No doubt Mr. Julian will go as his 
father has.’ Do you think I could endure that ? 
Some things cannot be explained, and people do 
well to keep clear of them. I am going back to 
Letty now. It is wicked to leave her so long, and 
I beg, I entreat of you, do not come up here any 
more. I live in terror, thinking you may come, 
and find things as you have to-day. Will you do 
me this favor ? Say good-by, and say it finally.” 

She held out her hand. Kenneth, overwhelmed 
by her resolute dismissal, touched the hand gravely 
and turned away, while Faith went to her sister. 

So miserable was Kenneth that he won his aunt 
over to his views entirely, and she undertook to 
go and plead with Faith and expound affairs more 
definitely than Kenneth could do. 

But Faith was inexorable. She would not bur- 
den a husband’s hands and name with her family 
sorrow. She and Letty had been called to this 
path — they would tread it alone. 


272 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


And yet how often a glimpse of the rest, the 
freedom, the happiness that might have been, came 
to her ! She loved the good, bright things of life 
so well ! It would be so blessed to be free from 
disgrace and reproach and fear ! Sometimes she 
was almost tempted to regret her decision, to feel 
as if she could not endure unto the end. In 
these hours she fought indeed with dragons, and 
she conquered them. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


BY sorrow’s hearth. 


“ Patroclus’ death the pretext of these tears, 
But each in secret wept her private grief.” 


BOUT this time the honest heart of Kiah 



^ Kibble ached at seeing the sad faces of 
Letty and Faith Kemp. All the former sallies 
of mirth, the reaction into happiness after grief, 
had passed away, and there were two maidens 
all forlorn, sure enough. There was always good 
pretext for sorrow in the behavior of their father ; 
but behind this ostensible cause of trouble was 
other care. Letty privately felt herself a very help- 
less, in-the-way little body, with no errand in this 
world but to burden other people. She knew that 
Faith was unhappy, and she grieved accordingly. 

Faith felt that she had put aside the one great 
opportunity of happiness that had ever come into 
her life, and she in fancy saw her future stretch- 
ing on and on in months of rayless gloom. She 
did not regret the course that she had taken ; she 
said that no other was open to her ; but in taking 


273 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


274 

that path she had turned her back upon the sun 
of joy, and cold and long the shadows fell before 
her as she pursued her way. 

Kiah Kibble was looking after his young friends 
more closely than usual, and he observed this 
gloom for two weeks ; then he considered it time 
to go forth on a little missionary work to the 
house on the beach. It was Sabbath afternoon, 
and Kiah put on his best clothes ; then, charging 
his boy to be scrupulous in refraining from fish’ 
ing, and bidding Nan by no means read other 
than religious books while he was gone, Kiah set 
forth to call upon his tenants. Father was asleep 
in his room; Letty was in her usual low chair, 
reading ; Faith had taken her Bible out to the 
sand line, but she was not reading. The book lay 
on her lap, and she looked out over the sea in a 
sorrowful dream. Oh, the long, long years of the 
future ! How they seemed to pile up before her, 
like dark and frowning peaks ! Life seemed so 
strong in her that she felt as if death must lie 
much farther from her than from other people, 
and the coming road would be as long as dark. 

Kiah Kibble was one of the very few whom 
Letty had met to whom she ever talked freely. 
The hearty piety of the old man brought him 


SOJ^KOW^S J/EAJ^TI/. 


275 


near to her. For six years he had been their 
only friend and helper, here in their exile. When 
Kiah now began kindly to question concerning 
the added gloom that seemed to hang over the 
sisters, it was not long before Letty had told the 
whole story. It was not only that father was mov- 
ing on to ruin with accelerated pace, but Letty 
had found that she did not suffice for comfort or 
companionship to her sister Faith, and Faith, on 
behalf of Letty and father, had made a great re- 
nunciation and was very sad. 

I know,” said Letty simply, that it must be 
a terrible trouble to love any one very much and 
send that one away forever, as she has done. 
I felt so wretched when we gave up Hugh, and 
if I were obliged to part with Faith forever, it 
would break my heart ! So I mourn over Faith, 
knowing that she is mourning. And that is not 
all, Mr. Kibble ; I think I never felt so troubled 
about myself before. I have always just taken 
the fact that I am not like other people, that 
my face looks old, and that I am deformed and 
dwarfed — I have taken that as something that 
I could not help and that I have become used to. 
But now I feel that trouble all the time ; I fret 
over it. I feel not only helpless, but in the way, 


276 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

and one of the stumblingblocks before my sister. 
I am one of the reasons why she cannot be 
happy. Faith sees that any one whom she mar- 
ried would have to take care of me, and I should 
be a burden to my brother-in-law, and it is differ- 
ent from what it would be if I looked like other 
people. If I were gone. Faith could not get 
along with father, and he would have to be taken 
care of, and Faith would be free.” 

*‘Ay, ay,” said Kiah, looking at his gnarled, 
knotted fingers ; “ how much better you can plan 
it than the Lord does ! It is a pity, child, but 
you had had ^he ordering of your sister’s life ; 
you would do much better for her, no matter 
what it is ! ” 

“ O Kiah ! ” cried Letty. 

“That’s what it amounts to, child. You had 
nothing to do with this deformity coming upon 
you. It ’s true it was your father’s sinful indul- 
gence that caused him to drop you, but many a 
man not at all in liquor has dropped a child he 
was tossing about in play ; and many a child has 
caught a bigger fall than you had, and never was 
hurt a particle. Often when I see the way chil- 
dren fall I think of the verse, ‘ He shall give his 
angels charge over thee, to keep thee ; and in their 


BY SORROW'S HEARTff. 


277 

hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time 
thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ For some 
reason that is all dark now, the Lord permitted 
this injury to come upon you, which has set you 
apart and made you different from other people. 
The darkness, my child, will not always lie upon 
his designs. It is written, ' What I do thou knowest 
not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.’ I have 
pasted in a scrapbook, where I keep choice words 
that come close to my heart, this verse : — 

‘ Pursue thy steady way 

Like some fair planet shining through the night, 

And though the course through gloom and darkness lay, 

Thou shalt at last emerge and tread a path of light.’ 


When the end comes, Miss Letty, you and all 
the rest of God’s children will be able to say 
like Jacob, ‘The God which fed me all my life 
long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me 
from all evil.’ You see, he did not mean that he 
had been kept from all evil, but God had made it 
all turn out for good in the end. You are one 
of that kind, child, that you care more for others 
than for yourself, and so you can take some com- 
fort thinking that this misfortune of yours may 
in some way be your sister’s best help toward 


278 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

heaven. It may do more for her spiritual life 
than any other thing. You feel as if you’d like 
her to have a nice home and easy times and all 
that is good in this world, but the word of God 
is that ‘ a man’s life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things which he possesseth.’ Life, 
in God’s idea, consists in growing toward eternal 
glory. I mind that my grandfather, who was a 
very godly man and a deacon in the church, said 
once of a man who had had a very great number 
of troubles and much sickness and suffering, that 
he had ‘ been a pack horse to carry the rest of the 
family toward heaven,’ because it was only his 
afflictions that turned their minds to religion. 
When my grandfather said that to him one day, 
the old gentleman looked about at him and said, 
‘ All right, deacon ; so they get there, I don’t 
care if it is over my shoulders, for I ’m like Paul : 
I ’d be willing to be made a curse for my breth- 
ren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh.’ 
And so, child, you cheer up ; don’t go to despond- 
ing now about the trouble you ’ve borne bravely 
for so long. Take the Lord’s will concerning you 
and yours with a cheerful face. The Lord loves 
singing pilgrims better than weeping ones. ‘ All 
things work together for good to them that love 


BY SORROW^ S HEART//. 279 

God, to them who are the called according to his 
purpose.’ ” 

These words gave Letty heart again. She saw 
her life in a better light, all radiant with the 
accepted will of God. And then when Kiah 
found that her heart was lighter he concluded it 
was time to go and give a little counsel to that 
other maid sitting musing by the sea. He went 
and sat down near Faith. 

She nodded at him silently. 

“ And so. Miss Faith, you have made your 
choice of a hard lot ? ” 

“ Did Letty tell you ? ” 

“ Yes ; what did you do it for } ” 

“ Because I ought. It was the only thing I 
could do.” 

“ You don’t repent of it then } ” 

No. As long as things are as they are it was 
my only course. Let us not speak of it any more.” 

“ Yes, that is a good plan ; it was done because, 
on your best judgment, it was right to be done, 
and so best not speak of it. That is right. But 
how about thinking of it } ” 

*'One can’t help thinking, you know, Kiah.’ 

One ought to, if the thinking leads to brood- 
ing and depresses the spirits and makes one 


28 o 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


unhappy. A sacrifice, Miss Faith, when it is laid 
on the altar ought to be laid there with a smile. 
I ’ve got a book at home I like to read sometimes, 
a history of those old-world countries, Greece and 
Rome. It has pictures in it, and one of them is 
of ancient sacrifices ; and the sheep and oxen that 
are brought to the altar are dressed out in ribbons 
and wreaths of flowers. Those were sacrifices to 
false gods, and the more is the pity; but still, in 
the way of doing it, they had the right of it ; 
they made the sacrifice free and joyful. You 
know. Miss Faith, in the Law, Moses ordered 
that on some of the sacrifices a handful of in- 
cense should be thrown. That is a type of prayer, 
but also of cheerful prayer, a sort of joy in the 
giving. It seems to me, if you don’t jnind my 
poor way of talking to you, that when we come 
to a place in life where there are two roads which 
we can take, and only one that we feel that we 
ought to take, then when we turn our feet into 
that one we should go on cheerful and singing 
and not looking back. Don’t you mind how it 
says, ‘ No man, having put his hand to the plough, 
and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God ’ } 
I am not educated as well as you are. Miss 
Faith, but I am older, and I have gone further in 


BY SORROW'S HEARTH. 


281 


Christian experience, and I take it it is Christian 
counsel you need just now.” 

“ I believe I need something,” said Faith, look- 
ing round at him ; ‘‘go on, Kiah.” 

“ I don’t mean to say you are turning back as 
regretting that you did it ; but you perhaps keep 
looking back as sort of lamenting, and contrast- 
ing what is with what might have been. That 
^s nature. Miss Faith, but it is by no means grace, 
and it is grace we ought to be all the while 
stretching up to if we mean to grow up to the 
stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus. I Ve 
been remarking on you for a couple of weeks or 
more that you have seemed very down-hearted. 
Now down-heartedness bears heavy on the bodily 
health. A cheerful spirit is a continual feast, 
but a wounded spirit who can bear.!* If you 
allow yourself to get into gloom and stay there, 
my girl, you can no more grow well spiritually 
than a potato vine can grow well in the dark. As 
long as you are in this world you might as well 
be making the best of yourself in ^ the way of 
growing up to glory. If you break yourself down 
by indulging in sorrow, you won’t be as able 
to endure the lot to which the Lord calls you, 
and you’ll have a discouraged, worn look that 


282 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 


won’t be any credit to your Father which is in 
heaven. 

Once I knew a man, Miss Faith, that became 
pretty deaf when he was about middle age. Now 
I don’t reckon that any one would prefer to be 
deaf ; it ’s a trial, sure enough. This man I ’m 
speaking of had a comfortable home, a well- 
behaved family, enough to live on in comfort ; but 
he took it into his head that he did n’t want ta 
be deaf and could n’t abide it. ‘ It was trouble 
enough, and too much,’ he said. So instead of 
counting his blessings he spread them all over 
with that one trouble of being deaf, and he looked 
the most woe-begone, mournful, down-at-the-mouth 
creature ever I set eyes on. I said to him one 
day, Mf you think your heavenly Father takes 
any comfort or satisfaction in a child of your 
pining quality, you are very much mistaken ; 
you ’re a disgrace to the Christian family,’ I 
said, *and it kind of disheartens your brethren 
to look at you. If you can’t chirk up on your 
own account, why don’t you do it for the sake 
of other folks ? ’ 

‘'Now, Miss Faith, I don’t mean you look that 
dismal, or are like to carry on the way that 
man did. It is not in your nature ; but I do 


BY SORROW'S HEARTH. 


283 


think you are yielding to sad feelings and 
discouragements and it will be bad for you and 
hard on your poor little sister. She has heavy 
burdens of her own, and I observe when you 
look cheery and talk lively and seem to feel 
fairly contented, she seems just lifted up into 
comfort by it. She’s one to pine over your trou- 
bles more than over her own. Now, miss, let me 
remind you that the Lord knoweth the way that 
we take, and he has counted up all our tears and 
all our trials. The sum appointed is written down 
from everlasting, and it was written by One who 
loves us and has our good at heart. Is your 
father’s failing a bprden } The Lord knows all 
about that. He knows just how far he is to go 
and when he is to stop and what will come after. 
He knows where help is to come from ; he knows 
whether, by and by, all this \Yorriment will seem 
like a very short time, and the after good very 
long and great. You cannot help these troubles 
that are about you ; but you can help giving way 
to them and being ruined by them. There is 
always the good word of the Father, if you will 
listen to it, and there is always his hand held out, 
if you will take hold of it. Many a little child, 
Miss Faith, walking in a rough way gets a tumble 


284 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


because it pulls and jerks free of its father’s hold- 
ing hand.” 

“ I believe you are right about it,” said Faith, 
turning to Kiah, to whose plain discourse she had 
listened attentively. “ I have always said that the 
best sense and the best courage made the best of 
the hard places of life, and here I was giving 
way ! I will think more of poor little Letty and 
less of Faith.” 

‘‘Do so,” said Kiah ; “because that will not only 
be good for you, but it will take that extra sorrow 
out of her face. Then, Miss Faith, if the time 
comes when she is gone away to the place she 
seems far more fit for than for this world, you will 
remember that you always did your part to com- 
fort her.” 

Faith started. Yes, she must consider Letty! 
“ I have been wrong and selfish after all 1 ” she 
cried ; “ and do you know, Kiah, that I have been 
praising myself as a very heroic and self-sacrific- 
ing young person.?” she added whimsically. 

“ No doubt ; we all like to do that. Well, I ’m 
glad you don’t, take my little preachment to you 
amiss. I meant it well. But I have been up here 
a long time, and I ’m afraid that things at my 
house may not be going on just right for Sunday 


BY SOBBOIV’S HEARTH. 285 

afternoon. I kind of hear it said to me as to 
David, ‘ With whom hast thou left those few sheep 
in the wilderness 

‘‘But he was justified in leaving them, you 
know, for he was out after that big giant Goliath. 
You have been up here slaying giants, and you 
found me and my Letty in the dungeon of Giant 
Despair and you have given us a key to help us 
out.” 

Kiah laughed. “Ay, ay! that’s a main good 
book, that Pilgrim’s Progress I I ’ll go home and 
read it to my family. I reckon I know how it 
will be when I get home. If the boy has n’t 
dared to fish, he will have been digging bait or 
playing ball. Nan will have got tired of her 
Sunday reading and will be peeping into a novel 
she ’s got hold of. The old woman finds Sunday 
long, and as she dare n’t knit or sew she does all 
the extra dusting and scouring that she can get 
hold of. Ay, I will go home and read a chapter 
or two out of the Progress.” 

As Kiah went up the beach to the path over 
the dune, he met Ralph Kemp, and completed his 
missionary enterprise by walking along with him 
and taking a seat behind a clump of juniper, for 
a little reasoning with him on his besetting sin. 


286 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


He risked shortening the reading in Pilgrim’s 
Progress by a few pages, while he tried to turn 
this sorely wandered father back toward the path 
of rectitude. He could not take him on such 
high spiritual grounds as Letty and Faith. 
Kemp had no spiritual yearnings ; but he had 
some remnants of family feeling and of personal 
pride when he was sober. He was ready to agree 
with all that Kibble said to him. Tears of honest 
sorrow came into his eyes when the old boat- 
builder pleaded the cause of the daughters. He 
promised reform : promised it so heartily that 
Kiah could not but believe in him. Kiah had 
only known Mr. Kemp for about seven years, and 
he did not yet understand the futility of promises 
so fervently spoken. 

Therefore, fortunate in the issue of all his 
benevolent undertakings, Kiah Kibble returned 
to read the Pilgrim’s Progress to his household. 
Oh, beautiful old book ! Oh, book so often 
blessed to the comfort and maintenance of the 
Father’s chosen ! Book product of prison and of 
bitter spiritual pain and long and weary discipline, 
how often have those springs rising in the Marah- 
land of God’s servant in Bedford jail made the 
vineyards of other souls like watered gardens ! 


BV SORROW^S HEARTH. 


287 


Whether we linger in the Interpreter’s House, or 
sit in the Palace Beautiful, or sing with the little 
shepherd lad in the green Vale of Humiliation, or 
with rising joy behold Apollyon worsted, or shiver 
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, or 
weep in the dungeons of Doubting Castle, or go 
up the glorious slopes of Beulah Land, or rest 
upon the Delectable Mountains — the heart is 
fed “as with marrow and fatness.” 

And now, when Kiah and Mr. Kemp were pacing 
slowly along the dune together. Faith, who had 
made new resolutions and had found something 
better to do in life than to dream and regret, ran 
up to the house to Letty. Self-scorn had helped 
Faith to put on a brighter bearing and take a 
more valorous tone than she had used of late. 

“ Letty ! ” she cried, “ I have been down by the 
sea learning lessons. They were good ones too, 
and have brought back my courage. With such 
a dear little sister as you are why should I not 
content myself ? ” 

“Has Kiah been telling you what I said.?” 
asked Letty wistfully. 

“ No, indeed ! What did you say .? ” 

“ Nothing worth repeating. What was he talk- 
ing about ? 


288 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“ About my religious duty ; about serving God 
willingly and cheerfully, and I mean to do it! 
I sha’n’t mope any more. There is nothing to 
mope about. I am young and healthy, and I 
know how to make a living. I have a dear little 
sister, and as for our little home, it is comfortable, 
and many people would be glad enough of as 
good a one. I have been counting up my mer- 
cies, and I can say, ‘ How great is the sum of 
them I ’ Now, Letty, if I cheer up, you will have 
to, or I shall go to disgracing myself by moping 
again, and you will be the cause of my downfall. 
To begin with, I have n’t been making it very 
pleasant for father lately, I have been so dull and 
self-absorbed. Let us get supper, just such a 
supper as we all like. Then after that we will 
have a good sing ; we will sing all our best hymns. 
To-morrow I mean to boKrow Kiah’s violin and it 
may amuse father to play on that for us while we 
work. What does it strike you we should have 
for supper } Say something easy now ! ” 

“Welsh rarebit and potato salad,” said Letty 
laughing. 

Thus Faith at Kiah’s suggestion reconstructed 
her ways. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


TOO LATE ! TOO LATE ! 


For thou art very valiant, but thy will 
Is weak and sluggish, and it grieves my heart.’ 



'AITH KEMP entered upon her role of 


cheerfulness with much vigor. She was a 
girl of great force of will, and she was the more 
urged to exercise this regnant power of the soul 
by seeing how her father had always been lacking 
in self-government. Having before her a daily 
spectacle of moral weakness, in one of its most 
painful exhibitions, she felt animated to rule well 
her passions and emotions and accustom herself 
to be dominated by the sense of duty. Therefore 
she was now all day busy and cheerful, and at 
night did not permit herself to lie thinking of her 
troubles or of how much better things might 
have been, but quietly clasped Letty’s hand in 
hers and commanded sleep, as healthy organiza- 
tions are able to do. 

Letty for some time watched her, to see if 
her cheerfulness were assumed in public and 


289 


290 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

if privately she were miserable ; but Faith had 
decided that there should be no backward 
thought, and no returning,” and presently Letty 
began to take comfort in her regard. Privately 
Ralph Kemp questioned his elder daughter as 
to why Mr. Julian was seen no more. Letty told 
him the truth. 

“It was then on my account father ques- 
tioned. 

“Yes, father. He came up here when you 
were at your very worst, and Faith sent him away 
forever.” 

“ Then I have ruined Faith’s life in one way, 
just as I ruined yours in another,” said her father 
bitterly. 

“Yes, father; but still — you never meant it.” 

“And what did I mean.!* Nothing; that is 
where the trouble lies. My moral nature has 
been like a bit of thistle down swept about by the 
strong wind of appetite. Such a man as I am 
ought never to have any children, Letty.” 

“ Father — did you drink before you were 
married ? ” 

“Only a little, child.” 

Letty worked in silence at the train of a 
peacock. 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


291 


“ The lesson from which is,” continued father, 
“ that women should never marry men who drink 
any. They never know unto what that taste will 
grow. ‘Behold, how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth.’ That was what Tom Wharton held, and 
he was opposed to our marriage, and that is one of 
the reasons of his hostility to me. I don’t blame 
Wharton; I don’t blame any one but myself — 
and I blame myself for being morally weak. I 
wish I knew at what point I might have begun 
the being stronger. Where could a commence- 
ment of moral vigor have been made ? before I 
was born ? ” 

“ Very likely,” said Letty; “and then, as soon 
as you were born, your parents might have helped 
you to understand by their management and train- 
ing that there was an ought and an ought uot^ 
and that people have to do what is right, whether 
it is pleasant or no. And so you would have 
come up with a good habit to the years when you 
were old enough to know reasons and govern 
yourself a little.” 

“The Whartons,” said father, “were all people 
with a tremendous sense of moral responsibility 
and great will power. They were headstrong too, 
on occasion. I think your mother was that when 


292 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


she married me. We loved each other, and for 
the sake of that love she resolved to take a great 
risk. Now Faith in her will power must be a 
regular Wharton, for I see she has taken a step 
that must have cost her much, and she is reso- 
lutely cheerful about it. I ’m sure I wish she had 
a father more worthy of her. I ’d reform if I 
could, Letty. Sometimes I think I will, if it kills 
me. Suppose I do resolve ! ” 

Letty said nothing ; what innumerable promises 
this man had made, and they had all been to his 
ungovernable appetite as the new ropes on the 
brawny arms of Israel’s giant judge ! 

I see you don’t believe in it, Letty, and I 
don’t; it is too late! too late!” 

Faith had common sense to see that in order to 
keep up her courage and fulfill all her duty she 
must maintain her physical strength. Open-air 
life was absolutely essential to her, and she daily 
persuaded Letty and her father to spend some 
time with her out-of-doors. An old sail of The 
Goblin was stretched as an awning against a back- 
ground of plum bushes, and sometimes they all 
sat there, and sometimes at the grotto among the 
rocks. It was a pleasant-looking family party — 
the handsome Faith, with her lace pillow on her 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


293 


knee ; Letty, throned on cushions, working at 
some frame filled with gorgeous designs ; father 
busy at a net or a hammock. No one would have 
thought to see them what a terrible sin blighted 
all their lives, and from what high and fair estate 
they had fallen. 

One day they were in their grotto when a fish- 
erman came up the beach to dig clams in a 
tongue of sand that ran out beyond the rocks. 
He had with him a girl of ten, who sat down by 
the wafer’s edge and presently began to drone in 
a loud nasal monotone, which she called singing : 

" Little Sally Sawyer, 

Sittin’ in a saucer, 

Aweepin’ an’ awailin’ for a young man. 

Rise, Sally I Rise, Sally! 

Wipe the tears from out your eyes, Sally ! 

Cease weepin’, cease wailin’ ; here ’s a young man ! " 

Father had laid aside his netting and was read- 
ing and carefully expounding to his daughters the 
first eclogue of Virgil. The loud twang of the 
girl broke up the reading. One, two, three times 
came this same dismal ditty. Faith rose and 
peeped through the crevices of rock to investi- 
gate. The child sat on the beach, her faded pink 
sunbonnet hanging back from her tousled head 


294 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


and freckled face ; her hands were clasped about 
her knees ; her brown, bare feet and ankles ap- 
peared from below her brown calico dress, and she 
rocked to and fro, keeping a sort of time to 
her chant, as with eyes vacantly set toward the 
sea, and hanging under lip and chin, she loudly 
drawled : — 

" Little Sally Sawyer, 

Sittin’ in a saucer ! ’’ 

“ It is impossible to read when such a din is 
kept up,” said father impatiently. ‘‘ Send her 
away. Faith.” 

“ I can’t,” said Faith ; “ the state owns the 
beach, and she has as much right there as we 
have. But certainly this Sally she is singing 
about is a very idiotic young person. What is 
she ‘ weepin’ an’ wailin’ for a young man ’ for } 
Could n’t she find something better to employ her 
time } Was all the work done at her house ? 
Were there no dishes to wash or stockings to 
darn or loaves to bake ^ ” 

" Little Sally Sawyer, 

Sittin’ in a saucer,” 

intoned the girl shrilly. 

“ Sally must have been an aggravating character 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


295 


to have about,” said Faith. “Why did she disturb 
the community with her woes ^ And the young 
man who is finally brought in to stop the general 
deluge must have been a person of poor taste 
to be suited with ” — 

“Little Sally Sawyer,” 


twanged the girl. 

“It will drive me crazy,” said Mr. Kemp. “I 
shall go away.” 

“Wait a minute,” said Faith, “and I will stop 
it. Now you and Letty look and listen.” 

She picked up Kiah Kibble’s violin and stepped 
out. 

“ Little girl ! Who was this Sally ? ” 

The child checked herself, with her mouth 
stretched for a long-drawn — “ R-r-i-s-e, Sally.” 

“ What was Sally crying about } ” demanded 
Faith with interest. 

The child had evidently never applied any 
thought to her ditty. 

“Was the young man her brother.^” urged 
Faith. 

The child stared. 

**Wa.s he dead f** 


“Dunno.” 


296 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

“Why did she spend her time in that foolish 
way ? Was all the work done ? Why did n’t she 
go and weed the garden ? I think Sally set a very 
bad example weepin’ an’ wailin’ for a young man. 
There are precious few young men worth turning 
one’s self into a fountain for. If I were you, I ’d 
sing about a girl that had some grit. Sally, in my 
opinion, was simply absurd and disgraceful. Now 
let me teach you how to sing that. Jump up 
there and stand before me, and we ’ll have a sing- 
ing school. Come now, hear me ! ” 

She played a few notes. 

"Little Sally Sawyer 
Broke a cup and saucer, 

Weeping and wailing over her dish-pan. 

Rise, Sally! Rise, Sally! 

Polish up your eyes, Sally ! 

And learn to do your dishes just as nicely as you can.” 

Faith, standing poised, her violin on her left 
shoulder, her pretty, round, dimpled chin resting 
on the dark old wood, her eyes flashing with 
mirth, the light flaming across her golden hair, 
beating time on the sand with her foot as she 
sang her version of “Sally Sawyer” to the 
amazed little girl, who with hands clasped be- 
hind her stood as if she saw a vision, made 
indeed a beautiful picture. 



’ HEAR ME ! ” — 


“ Come, now 


V. 208 







** Is n’t Faith splendid ! ” cried Letty in wild 
admiration. 

** She is fit for the very first position in any 
society,” said her father. ‘‘What grace! what 
quick adaptability I And to think she is set here 
in this dull, dreary place to wear out her life over 
a lace frame — by my fault, my fault, my most 
grievous fault I ” And father smote his breast in 
penitential mood. 

But the penitential mood is a painful one, and 
father did not relish this indulgence in it. He 
tried to lessen the poignancy of reflections upon 
himself. 

“ I am sure Faith is not unhappy or grieving ; 
she could not put all that fun on in a minute. 
She is contented with us, and did n’t care for 
Mr. Julian. I rather wonder that she did not ; he 
is a fine fellow, but Faith evidently took a dislike 
to him and showed it very plainly.” 

The clam digger had now finished his work and 
was coming along the beach. Ralph Kemp went 
out to ask him whether there were many clams 
to be found. He thought he would get some for 
supper ; he had a weakness for clam fritters. 

Faith went back to Letty. As she sat down 
and took up her work she said : “ I am truly 


2gS the house on the beach. 

thankful that the Lord thought it worth while to 
send me a message by Kiah Kibble, so that I am 
delivered from making a ‘ Sally Sawyer ’ of my- 
self. A pretty creature I would have looked 
pining and fretting, instead of doing what work 
is given me to do ! That child’s droning lay 
showed me just what a dunce I might have 
been.” 

But, Faith, father and I were just saying that 
you seemed made to shine. You seem just the 
one to be put in some high place and show 
every one how to be bright and beautiful, and 
here you are in a little cabin on the beach earning 
bread at a lace frame ! ” 

“ ‘ Far better in its place the lowliest bird 
Should praise Him in its song 
Than that a seraph strayed should take the word 
And sing his glory wrong,' ” 

said Faith calmly. '‘I ought to be just where 
God has placed me and nowhere else.” 

“Faith,” said Letty softly, “you grow. It is 
well to grow, for only when we grow do we really 
know that we live. A year ago I think that you 
could not have felt or spoken just in that way.” 

“ I have had more experiences,” said Faith ; 
“and I think, Letty, that experiences are some- 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


299 


thing to be thankful for, whether they are exactly 
pleasant or not. And it would be a shame if I 
could not show a little patience and self-sacrifice, 
after having before me during all my life such a 
sweet example of both as you have set me. What 
is any little trouble I may have had to your 
trouble, my dear Letty } ” 

Letty made no reply; but she considered that 
no doubt Kiah was right, and that by ways which 
seemed to her hard and which she would gladly 
have spared the beloved sister, the Lord who 
loved her better still had led her into a loftier 
spiritual life. “To grow in grace,” said Letty to 
herself — “ this is our errand here below, and it is 
worth much to learn to do it well.” 

And so daily these sisters grew dearer to each 
other and came into closer and more tender con- 
fidence, and those weeks were to Faith’s thoughts 
in after life as a sacred time, a sweet and blessed 
memory. She learned at last to forget the shad- 
ows that father cast into that autumn, and recall 
only the hours she and her little gentle elder 
sister spent in sweet sympathy. The father was 
often away, they did not know where. He now 
went so often that they could not follow and 
rescue him as once they had tried to do. No 


300 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


work would have been done, and no bread earned, 
and “Kemp’s daughters,” “the dwarf girl,” and 
“the handsome one” were becoming more con- 
spicuous than they could endure to be. 

One day they were thus alone. It was the first 
week in October, and the weather was particularly 
warm and calm. The sisters were at work with 
the door and window open, when a shadow fell 
across the threshold and a parasol tapped on the 
doorpost. A slender dark girl stood there, with 
smiling eyes like some Faith knew quite well — 
a girl of about eighteen. 

“Are you Faith and Letty Kemp.?” said the 
stranger. “ May I come in .? I am Patty — 
Patty Julian. Do you know me.?” 

“Yes,” said Faith, rising and holding out her 
hand, and led the guest up to Letty. Letty had 
kept her seat. It had always been very distress- 
ing to her to rise for the first time, and show her 
dwarfed stature to strangers. She was at less 
disadvantage seated in her chair. 

Patty bent and kissed Letty, and Faith at once 
loved her for that ; but the slender, dark Patty 
seemed a little in awe of the tall, erect beauty, 
four years her senior. Faith gave her a chair 
near Letty. 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


301 


“ I am only here for a day or two,” said Patty 
shyly. “ I have so often heard of this beach, but 
I have never been able to come and see for myself 
until now. This fall I am more free. I do not 
have to go to school any more. I graduated in 
June. But you must not think that means know- 
ing very much. They did not teach us such won- 
ders of Latin as Kenneth says you know, and I 
am afraid we were dreadfully slack in English 
literature. Uncle Doctor would not send me to 
a college or boarding school, where they would be 
real particular with us ; he had some crochet about 
my health. I had a cold once, when I was about 
six, and ever since then he has had notions about 
my health. Don’t you think that was a very high 
price to pay for a cold — to have to be coddled 
forever after 

“ Perhaps it was very wise to coddle you,” 
smiled Faith. 

“ Pshaw ! I make sure that it was just because 
Uncle Doctor cannot be happy without some one 
to coddle! He is made so I Do you know, I see 
your brother Hugh very often.” 

“Oh, do you.?” cried Letty, considering that 
here was a girl to be envied. 

“Yes; he comes to our house frequently, and 


302 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH 


your Unde Tom comes too, now, sometimes; and 
he and Uncle Doctor are getting to be great 
friends. I like your Uncle Tom very much. He 
and I get on so nicely ; and he is always telling 
me how nice your brother is. He is so proud of 
him ! ” 

Faith saw a vivid pink blush drifting over 
Patty’s cheek when she spoke of Hugh. 

“Your brother talks to me of you. He was so 
glad that I was to come up here to see you. He 
wished it would be well to write. He says to tell 
you that in a year from now you will all be living 
together, and will never be parted in this way 
again. He makes such plans, but he never speaks 
of them to his Uncle Tom. He says when the 
time comes near, then he will tell him just what 
he means to do.” 

“You make us very happy, speaking to us of 
our brother,” said Faith. 

“ My brother also speaks to me of you,” said 
Patty with a keen glance at Faith, who was very 
busy with an intricate corner of her lace work, 
“and Aunt Parvin does also. I feel as if I know 
you.” 

“ Thank you. How is my little cavalier, 
Richard.?” 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


303 


“Jolly as ever, and never tired of talking of his 
* mermaid.’ I used to be his favorite, because I 
can play ball and whistle ; but he says you know 
how to do many more things than I do.” 

“ I hope you will not therefore be jealous and 
dislike me } ” 

“No. I will not be jealous of you about any- 
body'' replied Patty. “ I thought if — if next 
year you came to live with your brother, I should 
like to know you a little now ; and then we could 
meet like old friends ; and so I ventured to come 
up here to-day.” 

“ I am very glad you came up,” said Faith ; 
“but I do not think we shall go to live in 
the city with Hugh. I think we shall stay here. 
There are reasons why we should, and here we 
get on very well. We are too busy to be lone- 
some, and we have each other.” 

“ But we are very glad to know you, and to be 
friends with you, if you will let us,” said Letty, 
who thought Faith too cold. 

Patty chatted for some time, and made herself 
very agreeable. Finally she rose to go ; then, in 
a hesitating way, she said to Faith : “ My brother 
came here with me ; he is at the hotel.” 

A deep red spot burned on Faith’s cheek. 


304 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


“ May he not come up here and call ? ” urged 
Patty. 

“No,” said Faith gently but firmly. “No, 
Patty.” 

“ Well, thank you for calling me Patty. I hope 
it shows that you do not dislike me.” 

“I like you very much,” smiled Faith, “and 
you were very good to come and call. But you 
must know — as I do — that it is better that — all 
should be — as I said it must. I know what is 
right.” 

Patty pressed her hand and turned away, but 
she knelt down by Letty’s chair and put her arm 
about her shoulders. 

“ Dear Letty, I want you to love me and be my 
friend, and write to me; will you, dear.^^ You 
have made no promise not to write to me, and you 
have no scruples about anybody else, as Faith has. 
And I want you to let me write to you, and you 
will answer me every week, will you not ? It will 
make us both happier. Say that you will.” 

“Yes, indeed I will, if you wish,” said Letty. 

And then Patty went away, leaving Faith j 
standing abstracted. j 

“Was I wrong. Faith .?” asked Letty. “Should i 
not I have promised to write ? ” 


TOO LATE! TOO LATE! 


305 


It was well enough, dear, if you chose ; but 
don’t you see that was what she came for ? Hugh 
and Kenneth have sent her. They want to hear 
.from us, and as Hugh is pledged not to write, and 
nothing would induce me to, they will get on just 
as well if you do it. But I am sure she liked 
you really, for yourself, not merely because they 
sent her.” 

‘‘ But, after all, is it not right that they should 
hear we are alive and well — our own brother, you 
know.^” said Letty. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 

He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know 
At first sight if the bird be flown; 

But what fair wood or dell it sings in now, 

That is to him unknown.” 



HE love of strong drink might, like the love 


of money, be called “the root of all evil.” 
As there is no commandment in the decalogue 
which has not been broken at the instance of the 
love of money, so there is none which has not 
been broken at the instigation of strong drink. 
Mr. Kemp, in discoursing to Kenneth Julian 
concerning this appetite, had held that often the 
brightest minds and the most genial dispositions 
were the victims of this fatal thirst. Of the truth 
of this statement he himself was a conspicuous 
example. 

Drinking is by no means the only sin rife in 
this fallen world, nor are drunkards the only sin- 
ners. A great deal of sin hides itself under good 
clothes, a correct demeanor, and much self-appro- 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 


307 


bation, and goes about its business, and regularly 
attends church, enjoying the highest credit in the 
community. The Scripture, which does not fail 
to survey the entire field of moral action, tells us 
that ^‘some men’s sins are open beforehand, going 
before to judgment; and some men they follow 
after.” Ralph Kemp and Uncle Tom Wharton 
were types of these two classes of sinners. 

There is also another thing to be observed con- 
cerning sinners and sinning: when the child of 
God cherishes evil in his heart, scarcely realizing 
how evil it is, and is yet desirous of being taught 
by the Spirit of God and walking in the paths of 
righteousness, then the time comes when the evil 
which he nourishes is brought clearly before him, 
so that like Job he abhors himself and repents in 
dust and ashes. Thus it was with Uncle Tom 
Wharton, who, though high-tempered and high- 
headed, was nevertheless sincerely anxious to 
serve his divine Master. 

The preaching of the Word is perhaps the 
means most frequently used by God for awaken- 
ing convictions of sin and true repentance, espe- 
cially in Christians who attend upon the means of 
grace. They go to the Father’s house and there 
they are enlightened concerning the Father’s will. 


3o8 the house on the beach. 

Thus it was with Uncle Tom Wharton. He took 
his accustomed place in the house of God, and 
there he was first reproved of sin and then 
shown the way of righteousness. He went to 
church one Sunday in November, and was dis- 
appointed to find that his own pastor was absent 
and that the pulpit was filled by an old minister 
whom he considered neither very learned nor 
very eloquent. This aged messenger, however, 
had a great depth of experience on which Mr. 
Wharton had not reckoned. 

Among Uncle Tom’s good qualities was a very 
carefully cultivated habit of paying strict attention 
when he was in church ; he never let his mind 
wander away from the subject in hand. If it is 
worth while to go to church,” quoth Uncle Tom, 
it is worth while to get all the instruction you 
can while you are there. Two or three hours a 
week are little enough to spend in receiving spir- 
itual teaching.” 

This habit of exact, undivided attention in 
church is just as capable of being cultivated as 
any other habit. Uncle Tom had found it so, 
and he rather prided himself upon being able to 
bring home nearly all the sermon with him, while 
an especially good point about his listening was 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE, 


309 


that he did not divide the dispensed doctrines and 
reproofs among his neighbors and consider that 
nothing belonged to himself. 

Uncle Tom Wharton boasted that he was not a 
man given to changeableness, and he thought it 
rather to his credit to hold anger and hostility 
year after year against the ill-deserving. “ If 
their wrongdoing is the same,” he said, ‘‘why 
should not my feeling against them be the same ? ” 
Chief among all his cherished resentments was 
that which had been stirred by his brother-in- 
law, Ralph Kemp. Possibly his pride in his 
own morality, his scorn of Ralph’s weakness, his 
bitterness against Ralph the sinner, a bitterness 
which extended even to his two nieces, because 
they had been guilty of cleaving to their erring 
father, were as evil in the sight of God as the 
devious ways of Ralph himself. The difference 
lay in that when Uncle Tom was shown his sin he 
hated it and forsook it ; but Ralph hugged his 
darling sin the closer. 

When Mr. Wharton heard the chapter for the 
morning reading announced, he opened his Bible 
to follow it, and it seemed to him he had never 
heard any Scripture so forcefully read. It was the 
story of a certain servant, who owed his Lord ten 


310 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

thousand talents, which were freely forgiven him ; 
but he went out and took a fellow servant by the 
throat, and would not forgive him, but went and 
cast him into prison for a debt of a hundred pence. 

And his loi'd was wroth” Then when the 
text was announced, ‘‘But if ye forgive not men 
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive 
your trespasses,” Mr. Wharton sighed to himself 
that the text was trite and the theme was one that 
had been worn out with much handling; but he 
settled himself to listen, because he was now an 
old man and had an unalterable habit of hearing. 
Whereupon this aged pastor, who knew many 
of the remotest windings of the hearts of men, 
and their most secret sins, which sometimes sat 
in the inner chambers of the soul, almost in the 
guise of angels, began to show, as Mr. Wharton 
had never realized it, the vast enormity of cher- 
ished anger, the danger of bidding the soul go up 
on the judgment seat to condemn our brethren, 
and the impossibility of loving and serving God 
while the human brother is unforgiven and un- 
helped. These ways of hardness are not the 
ways of our Father in heaven, or of the Christ our 
Elder Brother. “ Hereby perceive we the love of 
God, because he laid down his life for us ; and we 
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE, 3 I I 

In a few moments Tom Wharton found that 
the preacher was drawing the pattern of his 
wrath-nourishing soul, and had a message from 
God to him. “Thou art the man” seemed to be 
the refrain of every sentence. How heartily had 
he hated the sinner as well as loathed the sin! 
How little quarter had he been willing to give to 
his erring neighbor! God had borne long with 
Ralph Kemp, but he had not been willing to bear 
with him one hour. He had bidden his stum- 
bling brother to rise up and walk firmly ; but 
had he given him his hand to help him up ? 
Had he been right in refusing to help Ralph’s 
children, except on the condition that they 
should sever all connection with their father.? 
Who had given him authority to dispense with 
the filial tie, and set Hugh entirely apart from his 
father ? Had not the daughters of Ralph a hard 
enough lot in life, but he must make it harder by 
denying them any comfort from their brother.? 
Who made Ralph Kemp and Tom Wharton so 
largely to differ .? What private and personal 
envies and jealousies and bickerings lay at the 
root of all this lofty exhibition of moral pride .? 
Uncle Tom Wharton began to feel as self-con- 
victed as did David when Nathan the prophet 
went to him with a story about a lamb. 


312 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

Home from church went Uncle Tom in a very 
silent mood, and after dinner took down his Bible 
and Concordance to investigate for himself this 
law of forgiveness and compassion. He had 
had new light that day on some parts of the Scrip- 
ture, and now he was searching out the meaning 
of Holy Writ as with a candle, line by line. 
He was a slow thinker, slow to make up his mind, 
slow to act, waiting to be thoroughly convinced 
before he spoke or changed his ground. More- 
over he was now an old man and here was the 
overturning of the notions of his lifetime. 

A week had passed away, and it was Sab- 
bath afternoon again, and Uncle Tom and his 
nephew were in the library reading. Uncle Tom 
had faced the varied facts in his case ; he realized 
how much he had always loved Hugh, who had 
his mother’s voice and face and ways; he had 
always wanted the boy for his, and had not wanted 
to share him with his father, and he had been glad 
of a pretext for dividing him from his family 
and parting him from other love and making him 
dependent for love, friendship, comfort on himself 
alone. In all the seven years of their joint lives. 
Uncle Tom had never once mentioned to Hugh his 
father or his sisters. He had wanted the boy to 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 313 

forget them ! Had he so forgotten ? Uncle Tom, 
with this new awakening of his nature, was dimly 
conscious that it would be a bad omen for Hugh’s 
character if he had forgotten these ties of family 
and kindred ; and if he now found Hugh callous 
toward his nearest blood, he would mourn over 
the work of his own hands ! Uncle Tom shrank 
from opening the subject lest he should find Hugh 
lacking, and should feel himself chargeable with 
the lack ! 

However, he was a blunt man, and what he had 
resolved to say he said baldly : — 

“ Hugh ! ” in an imperative voice, “ how long 
since you have thought of your father and 
sisters ? ” 

Hugh dropped his book astonished. “I think 
of them every day.” 

“ Next September you will be twenty-one, 
Hugh. Have you thought what you wished to 
do — about them — then } ” 

“I have made up my mind. Uncle Tom, as to 
what is the only thing I can do.” 

“ Well,” with impatience, “ what is that } ” 

My poor sisters, one a delicate, deformed girl, 
the other only two years older than I am, have 
had for seven years to bear all the sorrow, respon- 


314 the house oh the beach. 

sibility, care of my unfortunate father. As soon 
as I am my own man, I shall assume that care 
and responsibility and give my sisters the relief 
that they have every right to claim.” 

‘‘What do you mean by ‘being your own 
man ’ ” 

“ I am bound to you, Uncle Tom, by a promise 
made by my sister Letty and myself to cut myself 
off from my family until I am twenty-one.” 

“ And you think that a very wicked and burden- 
some promise that I exacted from you } ” 

“ I think that you exacted it for my good. I 
believe you felt that only by my being so severed 
from my father could I grow up in moral straight- 
ness, and free from his sin. I don’t blame you 
one bit, uncle. You have been all and more to 
me than you promised. I owe you no end of 
gratitude, but I lose sight of the gratitude in giv- 
ing you a son’s love, and that seldom thinks spe- 
cifically of gratitude. I am sure my sister Letty 
thought that this plan was right, if it was hard. 
But I do think. Uncle Tom, that if it had ended 
in blotting out of my mind my family and my 
duty to them, if I had grown indifferent to the 
needs of my father and the love of my sisters, it 
would have been very heart-hardening to me, and 
put me out of the line of blessing.” 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 3 1 5 

** That’s what I think,” said Uncle Tom; *‘but 
it seems you have remembered ? ” 

“ I loved them very much, especially my sisters. 
We had been everything to each other, and had 
had few other friends. I had promised my mother 
always to love and help the girls. \ye all prom- 
ised each other before we parted that we would 
think of each other every day, and that the years 
should make no difference in our love. I have 
always prayed for them, and I am sure they have 
for me, and we have had our hearts held close 
together by being held in God’s hand.” 

“And what do you mean to do for them ? ” 

“ I mean to put father in the safety of some 
retreat or asylum, where he cannot harm himself 
or other people. It is idle to hope that he will 
reform. It is too late. He is one of that un- 
happy class that must be cut off from the com- * 
munity, for the public good, and I can only take 
care that he shall have all the comfort and kind 
treatment that I am able to secure for him. 
When he is provided for I shall make a home for 
my two sisters. We can live together, in some 
little flat here, very cheaply. And if I cannot 
earn enough to maintain us all, the girls can earn 
what is lacking for themselves just as they do 


now. 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


‘^And you are going to leave me out in the 
cold ? ” 

‘‘No, Uncle Tom; we will visit you, and see 
you and love you just as much as you will let us. 
But the girls I must take care of ; they are young, 
desolate girls, and you are a strong, rich, well- 
connected man.” 

“See here, Plugh,” quoth Uncle Tom, “for the 
past week the Lord has been running a subsoil 
plow through my heart, and tearing it up at a 
great rate. I didn’t know that I had such treas- 
ures of darkness in it ! ” And he proceeded to 
give Hugh an account of the moral revolution 
that had been worked in him. “ I was wrong,” 
he said; “and when Tom Wharton sees that he is 
wrong, the first thing that he does is to try to 
get right. The plan you have made is manly and 
sensible, if your sisters will fall in with it. You 
don’t know what they are like if you have not 
heard from them for seven years, and that is all 
my fault.” 

“ I have not heard from them, but I have heard 
of them, and know all about them, and have for 
more than a year, through Kenneth Julian; and 
Patty Julian went up to the beach where they 
live, and saw them and told me about them ; and 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 3 I 7 

last Christmas the Julians and I sent them a big 
box of presents — poor dear lonesome girls ! ” 

“ Seems to me I have been keeping myself out 
of some good times!” cried Uncle Tom. ^^And 
little Patty went to see them, eh } You chose a 
good messenger, Hugh. Little Patty I She is a 
girl worth knowing. When I look about on all I 
have been gathering to make this home pleasant, 
I sometimes think I ’d like nothing better than to 
see little Patty here in possession, to hold it after 
I am gone I How does that strike you, Hugh.?” 

“ It strikes me that I am not twenty-one, and 
am already provided with a family of three to take 
care of, and that I must stick closely to that for 
some years to come. But I did not send Patty to 
the beach. It was Kenneth who did it. Kenneth 
wants Faith to marry him, and she won’t, on 
account of father and Letty.” 

“ Well, well, well I ” said Uncle Tom. 

I ’m glad, uncle, that you are not going to be 
angry with me, because I must take my rightful 
place and do my duty to my family.” 

“ No. I won’t stand in the way of your getting 
God’s blessing on right doing. I ’ll help you on. 
Why wait a year.? Why leave those girls for an- 
other miserable winter up there on the beach ? 


3i8 the house on the beach 

Tell me all that you have found out about them. 
Letty was the best little soul, and Faith was a 
real beauty, and bright as a new dollar. I wanted 
to have them come here at first, but I would not 
go so far as to put your father where he would be 
safe. Besides, he would not have gone, and he 
was then master of his own actions, and not so 
wrecked as he is now.” 

Don’t blame yourself any more,” said Hugh, 
and gave in careful detail all that he had gathered 
from the Julians about his family ; and yet Hugh 
was far from knowing the worst. 

Now see here,” said Uncle Tom, “you go up 
there this very week, and see what arrangements 
you can make. If your father will go to some 
retreat quietly, well and good. If not, you can 
get an order from the court for his restraint. The 
only fair thing to do, for you or the girls or the 
community at large, is to keep him out of harm’s 
way. I think that all habitual drunkards should 
be treated as dangerous lunatics, and locked up. 
When your father is in safe-keeping, bring the 
girls here. We will be all one family, just as I 
wanted to have it when your mother died. A 
pretty notion it would be for you and the girls to 
be living in your little flat, and the girls slaving 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 


319 

away with their needles while I have more money 
than I can use ! What do you take me for ? ” 

“Fora genuine good uncle, though sometimes 
a little crusty,” said Hugh, laying his hand on his 
uncle’s shoulder. “And your plan is a much 
nicer one than mine. Uncle Tom. You don’t 
know how I hated to think of leaving you and 
this home and all the pleasant things I have 
been used to for seven years.” 

Now on this very Sabbath afternoon when 
Hugh and his Uncle Tom were planning in this 
way, Kenneth and his sister Patty were sitting 
together, and Patty said that it was already grow- 
ing chilly ; the days were short, and soon the 
hunter’s moon would have waned away and the 
glory of the Indian Summer would have departed 
and winter with its gray skies and whistling 
winds would be upon the land. 

Then Kenneth began to lament the lot of Faith 
and Letty on the lonely beach in that little deso- 
late house, with their father subject to violent out- 
breaks, and no friend near them but Kiah Kibble 
the boatbuilder. Kenneth pictured a thousand 
terrible things that might befall them, and he felt 
sure that, pursued by the demons of these fears, 
he should not be able to eat or to sleep all winter. 


320 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


For want of a better scapegoat whereon to lay 
his troubles, he charged all to Uncle Doctor. He 
did not stop to consider that Uncle Doctor’s op- 
position to Faith would have been futile if Faith 
had been willing to agree to Kenneth’s plans 
for her and for himself. Moreover, Faith knew 
nothing of Uncle Doctor’s opinions. 

Patty, being a girl of common sense, expounded 
this to Kenneth. At all events, Kenneth said, it 
was impossible that matters should stand in this 
way. Faith ought to hear reason, for the benefit of 
Letty if not for her own. He should not let the 
question drop. If Faith were safe and comfort- 
able, he would not be so miserable just because 
he was not the one to afford the safety and com- 
fort. Then he inveighed strongly against Uncle 
Tom Wharton and Hugh for neglect and hard- 
heartedness. A pretty thing for them to be roll- 
ing in wealth, and the sisters in a cabin fighting 
for their bread ! He knew what he would do : he 
would go up to the beach on Wednesday, and he 
would not come away until he had brought Faith 
to hear reason, and not risk her life and Letty’s 
in this fashion. Then, having greatly excited 
Patty with a view of Hugh’s iniquities, Kenneth 
after tea set off to the Seaman’s Bethel, in which 
he had an evening class. 


HE FINDS LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 32 1 

While Kenneth was going to the Bethel, Hugh 
was hastening to Uncle Doctor’s to tell Patty the 
good news about Uncle Tom’s change of opinion. 

Patty was a vehement little body, and when she 
heard that Hugh had called for her to go to 
church, instead of going for her hat she stirred 
her thoughts to wrath, and marched as an army 
with banners to greet her guest in the library. 
The scarlet flush on her cheeks was as pennants 
displayed, the flash of her level glances was as 
serried bayonets ; the clear high tones of her 
voice rang defiance, and she met Hugh with a 
proclamation of war: — 

‘‘ Hugh Kemp ! I ’ve been thinking of your 
sisters all the afternoon ! And I think you and 
Mr. Tom Wharton are acting most selfishly and 
barbarously to them ! The idea of leaving them 
to freeze up there on that wretched beach, while 
you have all the good things of life here in the 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 

“Wouldst thou a mortal man from death withdraw 
Long since by /ate decreed? " 

\ T 7HEN Patty so vigorously upbraided Hugh 
^ ^ on account of his sisters, Hugh felt that 
this championship was admirable. At the same 
time it suggested to him what a fine thing it 
would be not to tell Patty what Uncle Tom had 
decreed, but to bring the girls to the city, and 
then give Patty a charming surprise. As he 
hoped that all his plans would be accomplished 
within a week, he could the more easily wait. 
Meantime, not to fall in her estimation any lower 
than he seemed unfortunately to be already, he 
told her that she was quite right, and he had 
made up his mind to do differently soon. 

Thus, as Hugh kept his purposes a secret for 
the sake of a surprise, he failed to learn that Ken- 
neth had resolved to go to the beach on Wednes- 
day. If they had known of each other’s plans, 
the two young men might have traveled in com- 

322 


LAST CkViSE OF THE OOBL/M 


323 


pany. As it was, there being two rival roads, it 
happened that they went by different ways when 
Wednesday came. 

On this same Sabbath when Hugh and Ken- 
neth were occupying themselves with the sisters’ 
fortunes, the day being fair. Faith persuaded her 
father to go with her to church. When the ser- 
mon was nearly over, he rose and quietly went 
out. Faith waited trembling for his return at the 
close of the service. He did not come back, and 
when the congregation was dismissed she went 
down the street by the saloons. They seemed to 
be complying with the law for Sunday closing : 
the shutters were up, and all was still. She could 
see nothing of her father. After wandering for- 
lornly about the streets for a time, she concluded 
to go homeward, hoping to meet Kiah Kibble, who 
went to a church some little way on the farther 
side of the town. She finally saw the boat- 
builder, who searched about back streets and by- 
ways for nearly an hour, but discovered no trace 
of Kemp. He returned to Faith, who was wait- 
ing, seated on the steps of an empty house. 

‘‘It is no use waiting for him. Miss Faith,” he 
said; “he is well hidden. You might as well go 
home to your sister. There ’s only One can look 


324 the house on the beach, 

after the devious steps of your father. The poor 
man is constantly more bent on having his own 
way and getting out of your care. To my view 
there is only one thing to be done, miss : if you 
cannot put up with his being commonly drunk on 
the streets, or imprisoned for misdemeanors, we 
must show that he is dangerous, as I think he is, 
when he is at large, and have him shut up.’' 

But where } We have no money to pay for 
him at a retreat or at a lunatic asylum ; it costs 
a deal, and Letty and I are just barely able to get 
along, working all that we can.” 

“ The county house has a ward for such ; he 
could be got in there,” suggested Kibble. ** I 
can see to it.” 

“ Do you mean as a pauper in the poorhouse } ” 
cried Faith, flushing crimson. My father ! edu- 
cated as he is — and ” — 

I know, child, it is piteous hard ; but what 
then } It is better than being out on the streets, 
unable to look after himself. He is in danger 
of doing something terrible, or of meeting some 
fatal accident. And then, you and your sister are 
never at rest or able to take any comfort : it is 
too hard ; it is wearing you out.” 

We cannot do that ! it is too dreadful,” said 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 325 

Faith. “ We must bear our burden one year, or at 
least ten months more, and then, with our brother 
to help us, we may be able to put our father where 
he will be safe and not too much disgraced.” 

The memory of Faith’s sad eyes and discour- 
aged face so haunted Kiah that in the afternoon 
he went over to see the sisters. Their father was 
still absent. Both the girls had been crying. 

“ It is harder,” said Kiah to Letty, “ harder 
sometimes to leavQ those we love in God’s hands 
than to leave ourselves there. We feel truly that 
God is good and wise and will do the best, and if 
the choice were given us, we would not want to 
take matters out of his hands ; and yet it is hard 
to rest satisfied. It takes a deal of Christian 
spirit to say, as David did : * Surely I have be- 
haved and quieted myself, as a child that is 
weaned of his mother ; my soul is even as a 
weaned child.’ Just giving up and waiting is a 
heap harder than the bravest doing ; I ’ll allow 
that. Keep up heart ; ‘ The Lord shall bless thee 
out of Zion.’ ” 

‘*I suppose it is just a piece of foolishness,” 
said Faith, “but I feel a sort of terror over me, 
as if something dreadful were going to happen. I 
feel shivery and frightened.” 


326 THE HOUSE OH THE BEACH. 


“The weather is changing and the winter is 
coming on,” said Kiah. “We’re going to have 
storms, and you are always one main fond of good 
weather and warm bright skies. You dread the 
winter, and I don’t know as any one could blame 
you. But you know. Miss Faith, that the evil of 
things is always more in the dreading than in the 
things when they come. The winter will go by, 
day by day, as beads slip off from a string, and it 
will soon be gone, though it looks so long in the 
expectation. I reckon that ’s one reason why God 
don’t let us foresee the future — because we’d 
suffer fwice over, once in the expecting and once 
in the enduring, and the suffering in expecting 
would be double the hardest.” 

“ I don’t feel as Faith does,” said Letty, leaning 
back quietly. “I cried about father just now, 
with Faith ; we cried for company’s sake I think ; 
but somehow I feel as if everything were now going 
to be just right. I have had such pleasant dreams 
lately, all about my mother. We seem to be to- 
gether and satisfied and happy. I think much 
more about my mother than about Hugh, though 
I suppose in ten months we shall see Hugh. And 
while I am at my work, I feel content and as if 
our troubles were already rolled away like a thick 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 327 

cloud, and I sing to myself. And it seems as if 
heaven were near, so very near, just a step, into 
the next room or so. I don’t know what I ’m 
happy about ; I ’m just happy.” 

I don’t think you have very much to be happy 
over,” said Faith. 

** Oh, yes, I have. I have you, for instance. 
And I enjoy my letters from Patty so much. I 
am going to write to her to-morrow. And it is 
such a comfort that our brother is good, arid 
thinks of us. Suppose he had gone wrong ? 
And I am happy when I read the Bible, it seems 
to mean so very much to me ; and my heart is 
full of hymns that sing in it as a flock of little 
birds in a garden ; and I am happy when I think 
that I need not worry or trouble myself about 
anything, but that all I have to do is to fall back 
on God and trust him. ^ As one whom his mother 
comforteth, so will I comfort you.’ ‘ Like as a 
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him.’ ” 

Faith drew nearer and nearer to Letty and 
clasped her arms about her as if she would hold 
her fast. She seemed somehow as if slipping 
away from her into a diviner air. 

‘*You are too happy,” she whispered; “there 


328 the house on the beach, 

are some cords drawing you that do not draw me. 
You must not forsake me. You will not leave 
me, my own good little Letty.^” 

‘‘That is as God wills,” smiled Letty. “It 
seems to me as if I feel stronger than ever, and 
am to be here a long, long while, till I am very 
old. Faith. How oddly I will look, so little, and 
yet so old and gray ! ” 

Faith kissed her passionately. 

“ Don’t take things so. Miss Faith,” said Kiah, 
— “as if only sorrow and evil were coming. 
Why can’t you feel as Miss Letty does — as if 
good was even now on its way to you } ” 

He rose as he spoke, for the afternoon was 
closing, and as he opened the door he added : — 

“ And here is some good at once ; here comes 
the father up the beach, and he is walking very 
straight.” 

“You go meet him, Letty,” said Faith, “and 
I’ll hurry and get him some supper.” 

Mr. Kemp had been drinking, but not deeply. 
He brought home with him, hidden in his bosom, 
a flask of brandy, of which he said nothing. After 
supper he said he was going to bed. 

“ You are not sleepy yet,” said Faith. “When 
you have gone to bed leave your door open, and 
Letty and I will sing to you.” 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 


329 


They sang a long time, and finally sleep and 
silence settled down over the little house on the 
beach. 

Monday arrived with forebodings of a change 
of weather. Puffs of cold wind came across the 
marshes, where now gleaners were at work pick- 
ing the last of the cranberries. The seabirds flew 
low, screaming, and among the distant rocks the 
red, hairy seals began to sport and dive, returned 
from northern migrations. Faith heard them call- 
ing and bleating like calves : to her their voices 
told of winter. The sky was very blue, but 
fringed and flecked with small white clouds. 
The sea, also, was intensely blue, and here and 
there dancing in the distance were curls of foam. 

“ It will brew in this way four or five days,’' 
said Faith, '‘and then a big storm will break. 
We have provisions enough and work enough, 
but the wood is nearly gone. We must see that 
father gets some and cuts it and brings it in.” 

Father did not object to this work ; he ad- 
dressed himself to it with feverish energy. A 
terrible struggle was going on in the father’s 
soul. He was making his last fight against 
his besetting sin. Once more the shame of his 
state, the fear of the future, compassion for his 


330 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


daughters had stirred him, and he longed, with 
what little strength of purpose was left him, to 
break the chains of appetite. There was the 
bottle of brandy hidden in his room. Should he 
drink or should he not drink The day before, 
drinking stealthily with others in the cellar of 
a saloon, supposably closed for Sunday, the hor- 
ror of his condition had stared him in the face, 
and he had resolved to go home. But, ever infirm 
of purpose, he felt as if he could not face what 
might be unappeasable pangs of thirst, and he 
took with him a quart of brandy. The walk in 
the fresh air, the hot supper, the attentions of his 
daughters, sleep calming his nerves, had given 
him a little strength, and he refrained from 
helping himself from the bottle. He wondered 
if, like Tennyson’s cobbler, he could set his 
enemy before him in the strong sunlight, and 
defy it, and never drink again. Probably not ; 
and if the bottle came forth, doubtless Faith 
would confiscate it. Meanwhile work, hard work, 
provoking a hearty appetite and heavy sleep, would 
tide him over a little period of abstinence. 

Thus Monday and Tuesday passed and Wednes- 
day came, gray and cold and windy. The sea was 
a dull leaden color now, and rolled and broke in 


LAST CRUISE OF THE .GOBLIN, 33 I 

foam-crested waves. The skies stooped close over 
the sea, dull leaden as the waters. The fishing 
fleet remained at anchor in the farther cove. It 
was useless to go to the fishing grounds to-day. 
The Goblin, fastened to a ring in a rock, tossed 
about and threatened to pound roughly on the 
reef if the off-shore wind changed. Faith thought 
that later in the day she and father would draw 
the Goblin up on the sand. 

After dinner. Faith found that she must go to 
a farmhouse about a mile off for meat, eggs, and 
butter. If her father were to be kept quiet, they 
must give him fairly good meals. It was idle to 
send him for the provisions ; it might put it in 
his mind to go to town. But as for putting it in 
his mind, it was in his mind all the time. Faith 
asked him to do some mending and banking up 
about the kitchen to prepare it for bad weather, 
and then saying, “Good-by, father; take good 
care of Letty ! " she set off. 

A few minutes after, Kemp, as if seized and 
dragged by a fiend against which he had no power, 
rushed into his room and drank part of the 
brandy. Then he cursed his compliance and 
worked madly for a time. After an hour he felt 
as if that bottle were dangled just before his 


332 


THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 


eyes, tempting him to drink. It was idle to fight. 
He ran into his room and seized the flask; then 
a horror of his state overwhelmed him. He 
flung the bottle over upon the bed, crying, I 
can not ! I will not ! ” 

Letty heard him. She ran to him holding out 
her hands. “ Father ! father ! what is it } ” 

He looked at her wildly, and running past her 
hurried toward the water. Poor Letty went after 
him as fast as she could. He ran straight to the 
point of rocks, got on his knees, and began to 
untie the Goblin. 

When Letty reached him he was already about 
to step into the boat. “Father!” she cried, “what 
are you going to do ! You must not go in the 
Goblin I Even the big boats are not out to-day. 
The wind is getting stronger. Father ! don’t go.” 

“ Let me alone, Letty I I am going out to my 
lobster pots. To-morrow it will be so stormy I 
cannot bring them in. There will be no more 
lobsters. I must get the pots.” 

“ No, no, father ! let them be. It is not worth 
risking so much for! They will drift in if they 
break loose. Don’t go ! ” 

But he felt that he must have fierce exer- 
tion and frantic excitement if he were to battle 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 


333 


with his fiend. Go he would ; he was already 
putting in place his oarlocks. 

Letty saw his unsteady hands and wild eyes. 
The brandy he had recently taken was telling on 
him. If he went out in this state, he would never 
get back — he would lose command of his boat. 
If she went, Letty thought she could quiet him 
with her words, tell him what to do when his 
own reason proved treacherous ; she could steer 
the boat, and, if need be, she could row pretty 
well, for Letty’s arms were strong. 

** If you go, I will go with you, father ! ” she 
exclaimed ; and as her father was pushing off 
she threw herself into the boat. 

**Stop! go back! You cannot come!” roared 
her father. 

** I must, if you do. But come home, father ; 
tie the Goblin up; let neither of us go.” 

The wind was driving them out from shore, 
but the tide was coming in, and just here the 
sea was calmer among the rocks, and the 
Goblin felt the influence of the tide more than 
the wind. 

Father found the boat setting in toward the 
shore. Then the spirit of perversity, which was 
in him when he had been drinking, took the 


334 HOUSE ON THE BEACH. 

reins. He gave a strong stroke with the oars 
and sent the boat flying seaward. 

I will go ! There ! Come, if you must ! ” 

Letty clambered to the stern of the boat and 
took the tiller ropes in hand. She had wrapped 
a shawl over her head and shoulders and she 
pinned it fast. 

Father was in his flannel shirt sleeves; he had 
cast off his coat. He was hatless and his hair 
blew wildly backward, as facing Letty he drove 
the Goblin along the water. 

This was what Faith saw when she reached 
the house and from the height of the dune beheld 
the Goblin leaping along the waves, Letty in the 
stern, the ends of her red shawl fluttering about 
her, father, in his blue shirt, bent to the oars. 
There was a rift in the sullen cloud-canopy over- 
head, and the broader light fell over the boat and 
its hapless crew. To what destruction were they 
going.? Faith shrieked after them, “Come back! 
come back ! ” and dashed along the beach and 
out upon the rocks. It was idle to call. Father 
rowed right on furiously, and Letty, whose back 
was toward Faith, never looked around. Faith 
ran up and down the beach in terror. On, on, on I 
The Goblin was but a little speck. It paused. In 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 335 

the line of light, surrounded by those white curls 
of cruel foam, Faith saw the red and the blue and 
knew that her father was drawing up his lobster 
pots. But now the wind that had been shifting 
and veering all day swept around and united with 
the tide, driving waves and boat landward, and 
Faith found the storm rising more fiercely with 
rain upon its wings. Straining her strong young 
eyes along that gray fury of the elements, it 
seemed to her that her father had lost strength or 
will or knowledge. Something was wrong. The 
Goblin varied in its track and staggered under the 
force of the waves and was not keeping its due 
course toward shore, but driving where the treach- 
erous currents bore upon hidden rocks. And 
now it was sure that this boat and her freight of 
two hung trembling on the verge of disaster, and 
death was imminent. 

Faith was alone on the beach ; no fisher was 
in sight ; no one heard her cries of despair or 
noticed her arms flung up wildly as she ran up 
and down the strip of sand, heedless that her hat 
and shawl were torn from her by the wind, and 
that her long golden hair, blown from its braids 
and coils, lay tossing over her shoulders. If she 
ran toward the boathouse, that would take her out 


336 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

of sight of the Goblin, and if near thh shore it 
overset, and the tide brought father and Letty in, 
no one would be there to help them. Besides, 
perhaps Kiah was not at the boathouse, and it 
was half a mile away. Faith ran to the house, 
threw wood on the fire and put on a kettle of 
water ; she made a fire on the hearth of the front 
room, always keeping her watch upon the sea. 
She laid out blankets on the floor and then darted 
back to the beach. So near ! so near ! she could 
see them well. Father had ceased to row and his 
head was bowed on his knees. Letty seemed still 
to hold the tiller ropes, but her face was upraised 
to the sky. They could not hear Faith’s cries of 
terror ; the wind carried them far inland, and 
the ears of the two in the boat were stunned by 
the tumult of the sea. 

The Goblin hung on the crest of a wave which 
broke upon a great rock, and the frail boat struck 
broadside and the water rushed through the 
shattered planks. The Goblin had made its last 
cruise, and the two, father and Letty, went down 
under the whirling foam. Faith saw it and in- 
stinctively rushed into the water, as if she would 
get to them and rescue them. She did not realize 
what she was doing until the water swirled about 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 337 

her waist and she felt the instinct of self-preser- 
vation numbly stirring within her and dragging 
her back, while she realized the futility of any 
effort of hers. No strong swimmer even could 
live in that dash of surge. So with the waves 
breaking in foam about her knees she stood cry- 
ing to the waters to give her back her own, and 
held out her helpless arms. 

And now the tide and the wind united to re- 
store what wind and tide had taken. Swept in 
with the debris torn from the sea bottom, hurled 
shoreward with wreckage of sand and weed and 
shell and bits of the Goblin, came Letty and her 
father. Faith with streaming eyes kept pace 
along the shore with the drifting of her treas\ire 
on the sea, and at last, after half an hour that 
seemed a lifetime, she rushed again into the water 
and seized Letty’s garment’s hem and drew her 
to her and carried her to the bed of weed 
along the beach — Letty, white and still, with 
face as serenely calm in the peace of death as if 
those mad waves had been a cradle rocking her 
to sleep, timed to the cadence of a mother’s song. 
Faith laid her down ; she knew it was too late to 
try to call life back. Letty was otherwhere, lost 
in the light of God. Faith knelt by her little 


338 THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH, 

elder sister with agony too deep for tears or 
sobs. 

And now the waters were bringing a darker 
burden and Faith went down into them again and 
reached her father, and with the output of all her 
young strength drew him also upon the sand and 
composed his limbs and laid his hands across his 
breast and wrung the water from his hair and 
wiped his face and closed his eyes. “ O father ! 
father ! ” Then, dazed by her strange fate, the 
girl knelt down between her dead, and she 
saw that the features of her father changed and 
changed and settled into calm, and took the 
fashion that she remembered when she was a little 
child. So, overwhelmed by what had come upon 
her, under the lowering sky beside the stormy 
sea she knelt between her dead holding a hand 
of each. 

Then along the beach, from where the stage 
had left them, came two who had met, bound 
on a similar errand — Hugh and Kenneth. And 
when a few paces had brought them to the crest 
of the dune, and Kenneth pointed and said, 
‘‘They live there,” they saw upon the sand two 
figures outstretched and still — and one who knelt 
between. 


LAST CRUISE OF THE GOBLIN. 339 

There lay father. For him all striving and 
failing were ended, his cause gone before a higher 
court, where cases are not tried on human testi- 
mony and of whose verdicts we do not know. 
There was Letty, entered into peace — one of 
the maiden martyrs of the nineteenth century, 
faithful to the end to him who at the close as 
at the opening of her life had been her destroyer. 
But no ; this was not destroying ; it was the 
best possible end, and by the sea gate she had 
entered into heaven. 


“In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word : 

Let me see that great salvation of which mine ears have heard, 

Let me pass to thee accepted, through the grace of Christ my Lord." 



7 76 







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